“You’re still going to university next semester whether you like it or not.” my mom said.

“You can’t go to community college forever. You’ve already mastered it. It’s time to move on to the next step.” my dad later added. 

Deep down inside, I knew my parents were right, but I stubbornly refused for awhile. 

“You’re going to university. My house, my rules!” my mom finally told me one day towards the end of my final semester at community college, “I know your tricks. You took algebra 0.5 for three years in high school because you were too scared to go to algebra 1.”

I couldn’t disagree. 

After a little more thinking (and a lot more pushing from my parents), I decided to go with the cheapest university on my list, which was University of Colorado: Denver. At least if I failed there, I wouldn’t put my dad in debt, too. 

“I’m surprised.” my dad raised his eyebrows when I told him where I was going to school next, “You realize that’s like the School of Mines for Biology, right?”

“It’s what now?” 

“CU Denver’s the school of medicine around here. It’s like the research school in the state. It’s literally world-renowned, and it saved your life, many times over.”

I didn’t believe my dad at first. But, when I got home from our little mountain adventure that afternoon, I researched CU Denver a little more and… my dad was right. CU Denver was (and is) among the top 4% of Research One universities in the country, and it’s where many of my medications (including Trikafta) were first discovered. However, it was too late to back out. I’d already signed my ass up for that school, and I was transferring there with 62 credits and a $1,500 Merit scholarship (again, to my shock). 

48 of those credits counted towards my BioTech major.