“Your success in life depends on the conditions you grew up in”.

I come from a “troubled” family. I was raised by my lovely mother, who worked various part-time jobs to feed my elder sister and me. At one point of time, my mom, my sister and me were surviving on INR1500 a month, which was at the time the equivalent of $25 USD. At another point, my mom got laid off the one job she had. Imagine being a school-kid and realistically worrying where your family was going to get the money for food from anymore. Tough times.

Anyways, things started improving when my sister got a job as a software developer. Following her example, I decided to get a degree in Computer Engineering. Although I scored above the cutoff score required for some of the best colleges in my home city of Pune, India, I chose a no-name college because it’s tuition fees were far lower than the prestigious ones.

As a result of the college being relatively unknown, I did not have “reputed” companies visiting my college for campus job fairs either. In the time of a severe recession in India, I was lucky enough to start working at a startup with some really bright people. They were patient with me and my bad coding skills, novice as I was, and taught me a whole lot about coding in various technologies.

After 4 years of work, I started thinking about getting a Masters degree in the United States. My sister and mom called me an idiot. My sister said, “Getting a Masters degree outside India is for rich kids, not for people like us. Forget it, you’re just going to disappoint yourself”. Being the right amount of stubborn and determined, I didn’t listen to her. I gave my GRE and TOEFL exams, and applied to various colleges in the US. Four months later I….got rejected by every single one of them.

Not knowing when to get the message, I worked hard on my craft at work, volunteered to do work beyond my line of duty, rewrote my Statement of Purpose, chose the right people for recommendations, and applied to exactly ONE college the next year: the University of Maryland, College Park. 3 months later, I got a wonderful, personal letter of acceptance from the Director of my program saying he was particularly impressed when reviewing my application, and would love it if I joined the program.

I was elated when I read the email, and a few seconds later, my joy fizzled out with one thought: “wait, what about the money?”.

While applying for various student loans, I applied for a job as a Graduate Assistant to work as a .NET developer for the University’s Student Union building. Turns out, the various technologies I had gained experience in while working hard for 6 years in India were exactly what they were looking for. A month after getting my acceptance letter, I got the job. The assistantship would pay for my entire tuition and also pay me a stipend, covering my living expenses in the US.

In these past two years, I’ve worked hard as a GA and a student for my University, never forgetting how grateful I was to even be there.

I graduated yesterday with a Masters degree from the University of Maryland with a 3.97 GPA. I did it without being from a rich background, I did it without asking my parents for a single cent. The financial conditions of my family as I grew up may have delayed when I achieved certain things, but due to hard work, and being a stubborn moron who doesn’t give up, I achieved my dream a little ways down the road.

I don’t care if this sounds clichéd or weird, but here goes: I’m so grateful to my mom, my fiancée, my sister, the Stamp Student Union, the University of Maryland, and, well, the United States of America, for helping me reach here to see this day:

The whole point of writing this answer is to give hope and encouragement to someone out there from a similar life situation. If you're reading this, hang in there, you're going to make it :)