Heather is a PhD student in mechanical engineering at Northwestern University. Coming from Alabama, Heather was home-schooled from 2nd grade to 12th grade. The reason for being home-schooled instead of attending a public or private school was because Heather had an older sister whose teacher used her older sister as a buffer between the problem children. Seeing this as very inappropriate, Heather’s mother decided to pull her two daughters out of public school when Heather was assigned to that same teacher.

Having a different perspective of and experience of working her way into college, Heather offers great advice about college. Here is what she told me:

1. There is no right way to go about your life. Everyone’s path in life is different from one another. Just because one person did this exact thing to get to this exact position does not mean that you need to do the exact same thing to get to the exact same position.

2. There's nothing wrong with finding out that your original plan didn't work like you thought it would. Nothing is perfect in life. It is okay to fail at doing something as long as you put your best effort into it.

3. You can only measure yourself against yourself when it comes down to it. You should not compare yourself to others. The best way to become better is to compete against yourself and be better than the person you were yesterday.