Sometimes It Takes Plain "Stick-to-it-ness"
Betty Garcia
Professor, Social Work Education
It is hard to pinpoint when and how my interest in learning and higher education began. Early, positive feelings about school, learning and libraries had a role in my ending up in higher education. Also, somehow I had an understanding early in life that it was important to develop economic independence and, retrospectively, I now see that a secret, magical element was sheer tenaciousness. In most people’s lives there are times when there are hurdles to deal with and you feel like you are out there alone. At those points, it’s important to be clear about your passions and continue to “go for it.”
. . . somehow I had an understanding early in life that it was important to develop economic independence and, retrospectively, I now see that a secret, magical element was sheer tenaciousness.
My family life was very much work oriented. Dad grew up as a migrant farm worker in the southwest and mom began working when I was five-years-old. As an adult, Dad worked as a construction worker building a steel mill and once the mill was open, he became a crane operator at the mill. His union wages and health benefits provided stability and played a large part in allowing me and my siblings to develop the lives we have.
I was the oldest of four children and the first in my extended family to go to college. I enjoyed school and learning from my earliest days, for instance I always looked forward to starting school in fall. My family would drop me off at the library at night for a few hours where I enjoyed wandering through the book stacks and checking books out on mythology. In elementary and junior high school, I earned good grades and was subsequently chosen to dedicate my new elementary school. In high school, I was in the college prep track, which I now see as potentially separating me from most of the other Latino students. I ran for office and was elected to a position with the girls’ league and was a member of a “Y” club (Young Women’s Christian Association, YWCA). I recall humorously using my hoarse throat at my election speech; it got me the vote!
The value of independence was strong with my brother and sisters. Interestingly, although I did well in high school, there was no counseling toward a four-year college. So I graduated from high school with the plan to study to be a “secretary” at a local community college. However, the summer before I began taking the community college courses, I ran into a former high school classmate as I came out of a store. She told me that a local state college was admitting girls for the first time. “Other girls from our high school are going,” she said. “You should too.” In those days a student could apply in summer for the upcoming fall courses; that was lucky for me! In college it took me a few years to discover the area I wanted to major in. Again, it was sheer chance that a social service minor began and I had the opportunity through classroom teaching and internships (junior and senior years) to discover my love for social work.
My family’s response to my going to college was, “do it if you want, but don’t fail at it.” Throughout my undergraduate years, I lived with my parents. I didn’t have my own room. I still shared a bedroom with my two younger sisters. The house was a busy place, so it was difficult to study. I began working around age 15, and continued to work part-time as a typist or in a department store to pay my own college expenses throughout my undergraduate studies. I participated in extracurricular activities, including volunteering with MEChA tutoring high school students. These activities and my high school involvement with the girls’ league and the “Y” gave meaning to my studies and essentially laid the foundation for a life-long passion for advocacy.
I would have never considered graduate school though had it not been for the professor who taught all of the upper division social service classes. Were it not for his telling our small little class of five or seven students “you are going to graduate school,” I never would have gone. His initiative in pushing me to apply for graduate study and his involvement in my studies changed my life. I was able to get a two-year graduate stipend to pursue a social work master’s degree. This saved me from having to work part-time along with going to school full time. I had a brief job in another town before moving to San Diego for graduate work. These moves were the first time that I lived on my own, supporting myself. Although I had the stipend and my parents sent a few dollars a month, managing rent, food, books, a car payment and other expenses was a real challenge; but it worked out.
After working several years with my Masters’ degree, I got more involved in higher education and returned to school in my 30’s for my doctorate. Graduate education gave me a career that has often put me in positions where I’ve had to do new things and challenged me with opportunities to learn and create. I am fortunate to have developed a life where I still wander through the stacks virtually and in reality and am blessed to have a life filled with challenges that I enjoy. But none of this would have happened without mentors, support, dreams and, on some occasions, plain “stick-to-it-ness.”
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