My senior year of high school, I got into UCLA, but my family couldn't afford it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I went to UCLA for a year and a quarter. There were too many students at UCLA interested in what I was interested in, and they couldn't accommodate all of us. I wasn't allowed to take voice or dance, only theater and acting. So I saved my money and, at 19, moved to New York.
When I was 18, I moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA.
I didn't want to go to college. I wanted to move to Los Angeles right out of high school.
I was the only kid out of six of us to go to college, primarily because my parents could not afford it.
I wouldn't have gone to a Division I school if I didn't have scholarship help. We couldn't afford it.
In my family, there was one cardinal priority - education. College was not an option; it was mandatory. So even though we didn't have a lot of money, we made it work. I signed up for financial aid, Pell Grants, work study, anything I could.
I wanted to go to medical school. But, I never got a college scholarship.
My family moved to Israel when I was eight until I was 10, and then we came back, and my parents split up. I was suddenly in a single-parent home and on scholarship. Fifth grade was such a hard year for me.
My dad never graduated high school. He was a printing salesman. We lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. We weren't rich - but we felt secure.
I went to UCLA, my dad's alma mater, and that was his dream.