In my family, education is an expectation. I believe this strong value of education emanates from my father’s side of the family. Both of his parents started higher education, although my grandmother never finished. Both my father, and grandfather went to the most prestigious business oriented university in the country. We also highly value private education, as public schools in this area just do not come close, although my father went to public school in New Jersey. The person who really deserves the credit for this trend, however, is my great grandfather, as he was the immigrant who became successful enough to send my grandfather to the best schools, and from there we can only live up to it, because that is what he would have wanted. But there is more, since the private schooling I received was more than just math English and science, rather it was religious education also, and I doubt that it would be nearly as complete if I had received that education after public school.

Honestly, I wish there was more juice to the story. Luckily we have this value, because honestly the public schools here are not something to be proud of. I know this first hand because last year I was forced to go to one to get a high school degree from there, and I can tell you I learned nearly nothing besides for Calculus.

One interesting story that I do have is when my grandfather applied to Princeton University, he was rejected on the grounds of a Jewish quota, which in turn is why he went to UPenn. As you can see, I really did not have a choice to go to college, but I never felt I did not want to go.