Sunny Side
Gabrielle Olivera is from Miami, Florida and her desire to be at Arizona State stemmed from her love for journalism. Gaby (Gabrielle) began writing at a young age and her mom always complimented her on it. She would sometimes get lost in her own mind and felt that her only outlet was writing it all down. As she continued to grow through her elementary, middle school and high school eras, the time came when she had to decide what her next step would be.
Gaby began talking with her friends to find out where everyone was going for college. An older friend mentioned Arizona State University as an exceptional journalism school. Although Gaby soon fell in love with the school, her parents did not.
“At first she [Mom] was like, I don’t know, Arizona is really far from Florida and she’s not wrong. It’s on the other side of the country, but I was pretty confident in what I was doing,” said Gaby.
Gaby explained to me that in Florida there is a a program known as the “Florida Prepaid College Plan.” In 1998 when Gaby was born, her parents joined the program which allowed them to ‘lock-in’ 1998-tuition-prices for a public college in Florida. They continued to invest into that account over time, but the only catch was that Gaby was required to attend school in Florida in order to take advantage of the tuition-locked prices and investment her parents made.
“So that’s kind of difficult. My dad took out quite a bit of loans for me to go to ASU. I’m kind of scared about it when I graduate but I hope that it was worth it,” said Gaby.
Because Gaby ultimately decided to attend an out-of-state university, her parents have run into multiple road-blocks in order to keep her here.
Gaby explained that she still does not have a car in Arizona, therefore she has to pay to Uber or Lyft to anywhere she wants to go. Recently, she became overwhelmed with the amount of money she was spending on rideshare’s and began asking friends for rides instead. She also joined the professional program, Cronkite News, which required her to travel and cover news stories. Unfortunately, this became a problem for Gaby and her grade began to suffer because of it.
But despite the hardships, Gaby and her parents have continued to stretch their dollars to assure that she could continue enjoying her college career.
When the days become a little too much sometimes, Gaby has one person on her mind — mom.
“I haven’t seen my mom in six months now. So it’s been a really long time, I think that’s like the longest time I haven’t seen my mom but I’m going home for Christmas so I’m excited,” said Olivera.
Gaby says her relationship with her mom has grown tremendously since she’s been living out-of-state and she knows now that a simple phone call can turn any day into a good one.
Now a senior, set to graduate in the Spring of 2020, Gaby reflects on the obstacles she overcame and initial decision to move out-of-state.
“When I was leaving high school I was like, in a very difficult place with my family and I really thought the best thing for me was to just be on my own and experience that for myself,” said Olivera. “So honestly, I feel like it’s been therapeutic to me almost and it’s been a great experience... And like for right now I’m going to say yes, it was worth it; I don’t know what loans I’ll be paying when I’m out of college, but I think it’s totally worth it.”
