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Abstract: Sue Fallis (56 years old) was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California. Growing up as an only child in the upper-middle class, she was pushed from day one to succeed. Though her parents had not college education, they wanted the best for Sue. During high school, she swamped herself with extracurricular activities to help her get accepted to hear dream school, Stanford University. Extremely disappointed with not being accepted to Stanford, her parents said she had to go to Santa Clara University.
Sue found herself in unfamiliar territory when it came to fitting in with the college atmosphere. She had attended a public high school and most of the students had attended private high schools. Mostly due to the constant parental pressure Sue, a very determined and competitive person, found herself not enjoying the college experience. She stated, “…every quarter (they were on the quarter system at that time) I swore I was going to apply somewhere else.” Sue stuck it out and received her Bachelors Degree in History from Santa Clara University.
It wasn’t until years later when she went back to school that she felt like she belonged somewhere. She felt like she knew what she was going to do with her life. She received her Masters Degree from San Jose State and her Doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. One of her most memorable moments was a few months before she received her Doctorate: her father told her how tremendously proud he was of her and her accomplishments, which meant the world to Sue. Sue’s first job was as a professor at Rutgers in New Jersey. Sue is now a Professor in the Communications Department at Saint Mary’s College of California.
Keywords: first generation, family, determination, History, professor
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