Today I am boldly and fully following my dreams to enter academia and pursue entrepreneurship but it has been a journey to get to this point. 

My parents are Caribbean immigrants. And anybody familiar with Caribbean immigrant culture knows about the pressure put on children to educationally and particularly--economically--succeed. After all, your parents didn't immigrate to the 'Land of the Free' for nothing!

For me, the problem was that I never really wanted to do anything that was considered responsible, practical, or lucrative by my parent's standards. I didn't want to go into the sciences or medicine or law or accounting. I wanted to write and I also enjoyed tutoring and teaching. 

I struggled with guilt for awhile because I come from a low income family and I felt like I had no right to do what was best for me if it wasn't also the immediately best thing for my family. I also struggled with a lack of support as I transitioned from pretending to want to go to law school to being honest about the fact that I wasn't going. 

But these are the 5 reasons why I pushed through in spite of the challenges.