Grateful for the Degree I Didn't Want

Redmond, Washington – January 2007

I'm sitting in a rental car in a Microsoft campus parking lot as "Lose Yourself" by Eminem blasts through the speakers at maximum volume.

Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity

To seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment

Would you capture it, or just let it slip?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFYQQPAOz7Y

I'm trying to psych myself up. Microsoft flew me here from Vermont. They're paying for the rental car, the hotel, everything. I'm about to walk into a full day of panel interviews for a role I'm barely qualified for and really don’t even want, except for the chance to set my career up for success no matter where I might apply after this.

This is the opportunity of a lifetime and I was nervous as hell that I was about to let it slip.

The Degree I Fought Against

Fourteen years earlier, I was a high school graduate with zero interest in college. I was working retail. I had my friends. I had my music. I was figuring things out.

My mother had other ideas.

She had been relentless about my earning a degree for as long as I could remember. She repeatedly told me that I had no chance of getting ahead in the world—of doing any better than she did—if I didn’t graduate college.

Though I understood what she was saying, I didn’t think that I was college material. The only classes I took in the Honors track were English and Spanish; everything else was Standard. Yeah, my grades were always high, but I still felt like college was a higher bar than what I was equipped to meet. I had no direction on what I wanted to study, no sense of what I wanted to do for a career. College felt like an expensive waste of time when I could be working, earning money, living my life.

But my mother—who had clawed her way through every licensing exam available to representatives working in the insurance industry—understood in ways I didn't yet which doors would open and which would stay closed without the credentials having a degree would provide. She wouldn't let it go.

So I went. Begrudgingly. Resentfully. Half-heartedly. I’m not going to go into the details of how I eventually earned my Bachelor of Arts in English here, but I will say that it wasn't a straight path and it certainly wasn't pretty.

Eventually, in 2001, I officially had the certificate providing that I had earned a BA in English from UMass Boston. When the document arrived in the mail, I handed it to my mother. I told her she was more responsible for my earning it than I was.

I remember thinking: There. Are you happy now?

I had no idea what that piece of paper would mean.

The Doors That Stay Closed

Here's what I learned the hard way while trying to find jobs in the early 1990s without a degree: certain opportunities simply don't exist for you.

Not because you're not capable, and not because you couldn't do the work, but because lacking a degree filters you out of consideration before any of the decision makers would even see your resume.

"Bachelor's degree required."

Four words that end the conversation before it starts.

My mother wasn't wrong. She'd been right all along.

The degree wasn't about the education itself—though I did learn things, eventually, once I stopped resisting. It was about shortcuts.

Hiring managers want to know that the person they’re considering is dependable, responsible, and reasonably smart. A degree says you were able to manage college-level material well enough, while balancing whatever other adult-level obligations you’ve had since high school graduation. That makes them feel confident that you’d be the better choice over the kid fresh out of high school who’s never worked anywhere but the local grocery store.

Without that shortcut, the door stays closed. You don't even get to knock.

Back to the Parking Lot

So, there I am in 2007, sitting in that rental car, Eminem on repeat, about to walk into Microsoft and complete the interviews I had spent weeks preparing for and it dawns on me:

I wouldn't be here without that degree—Mom really was right…about everything.

I wasn’t there because Microsoft needed proof I understood the job (my resume showed that), and not because they needed proof I could think critically (the phone interviews established that), but because "Bachelor's degree required" was on the job posting. Without that entry under my “Education” section, my resume would never have made it past the initial screening.

My mother's insistence—her refusal to let me settle for "good enough"—is the only reason I'm sitting in this parking lot right now.

I take a deep breath. I turn off the ignition, walk into the building, and I spend the next several hours nailing it.

They offer me the job. I accept. We move from Vermont to Washington. My career—and our lives—change completely.

All because of a degree I didn't want and fought against every step of the way.

What My Mother Understood

My mother didn't have the luxury of idealism about education.

She knew from experience, from watching people she loved struggle, from her own hard-won battles that the world has gatekeepers and that those gatekeepers often care more about credentials than capability.

She knew that "I could do that job" doesn't matter if you can't get in the room to prove it.

She knew that opportunity isn't distributed fairly. It's distributed to people who meet arbitrary requirements. A bachelor's degree, fair or not, is one of those requirements.

She pushed me to get the degree not because she thought I needed four more years of school to be smart enough or capable enough.

She pushed me because she knew I needed the key. And the degree was the key.

Fast Forward: Microsoft, Round 4

Here we are in November 2024.

I'm back at Microsoft. Again.

This is the fourth time they've hired me. I've worked here in different roles, different teams, across different years. I left, came back, left again, came back again.

This latest return? It's a lifeline.

After a brutal year financially—layoffs, instability, the chaos of trying to keep a household afloat when income disappears—Microsoft called again.

Is this role likely to last long? Probably not. The nature of contract work in tech means nothing is permanent, and since this one is tasked with a Sisyphean effort that I don’t see getting funded very far into the future, my hopes are not high.

But right now, it's giving us breathing room. It's letting me catch up on bills, stabilize things, figure out the next move.

For that, I'm deeply, genuinely grateful.

Not just for the job, but for the degree—and my mother’s relentless insistence—that made it possible in the first place.

This Thanksgiving

So this Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for:

The stubbornness that wouldn't let me quit when that's all I wanted to do.

The foresight I didn't have at eighteen but benefited from anyway.

The sacrifice of working two jobs so I could have opportunities she never did.

The love that looked like pressure but was actually protection.

My mother wasn't perfect. Our relationship had its complications, but on this she was absolutely right.

Every door that degree has opened—every job I've gotten, every opportunity I've had—I owe to her refusal to let me settle.

Thank you, Mom. For being stubborn. For being right. For loving me enough to make me do the thing I didn't want to do.

I get it now.