I started college at Wharton County Junior College, specifically the Sugar Land campus — a place that felt like the academic equivalent of a starter home. It was the perfect entrance to higher education, and I mean that with the kind of sarcasm that comes from flunking out your first semester.
In my defense, I was trying to wait tables, grieve a first love, and pretend I wasn’t falling apart. That combination is not known for producing strong GPAs.
But WCJC is built for comebacks, and so was I. The very next semester, I pulled straight As like I was trying to prove something to the universe.
A lot of that turnaround came from two professors who accidentally rewired my brain.
Dr. Schultz‑Zwahr lit my fire for psychology — suddenly human behavior made sense, including my own.
Dr. Sutter lit my fire for political science — suddenly the world made sense, including why everything was on fire.
WCJC was my reset button. My “you’re not broken, you’re just overwhelmed” chapter.
From there, I transferred to the University of Houston, where I lived first in South Tower and then in Settegast Hall. Both were loud, chaotic, and full of the kind of energy that only happens when thousands of 18‑to‑20‑year‑olds are stacked vertically and fed unlimited carbohydrates.
But the real education wasn’t in the dorms. It was in Third Ward.
For a nerdy white girl, living in that neighborhood was a cultural baptism. I inhaled Black culture — not as a tourist, but as a neighbor. I learned the rhythm, the humor, the food, the history, the pride, the grief, the brilliance. I learned how to listen. I learned how to shut up. I learned how to belong without pretending to be anything other than exactly who I was.
I fell in love with Frenchie’s — fried chicken that could fix your whole life.
I fell in love with Timmy Chan’s — wings and rice that could fix whatever Frenchie’s didn’t.
I have tasted Drank. I have survived Drank. I am, in a very real way, the 713.
And because I apparently wasn’t busy enough, I also worked for the Graduate School of Social Work, managing its computer lab. This meant I spent my days helping stressed-out grad students fight with Microsoft Word like it owed them money.
That’s where I met a graduate student nobody ever heard of named Brené Brown.
Back then, she was just Brené — another student trying to figure out why her document kept auto‑formatting itself into chaos. I taught her a few tricks in Word. Nothing dramatic. Just the usual “here’s how to make your margins behave” kind of thing.
Years later, when she became Brené Brown, I thought, “Well, I guess I contributed to the vulnerability revolution by teaching her how to indent.”
It’s a tiny footnote in her story, but a delightful headline in mine.
WCJC taught me how to start again.
UH taught me how to expand.
One gave me grounding.
The other gave me identity.
Together, they shaped the version of me who can flunk out, get back up, move to Third Ward, eat Frenchie’s at midnight, teach Brené Brown how to use Word, and walk into adulthood with a little more grit, a little more humor, and a whole lot more story.
Scored by Copilot, conducted by Leslie Lanagan
Stories That Are All True 