Getting My GED After Leaving a Neglectful Home: What Made a Difference for My Astronomy Dreams
The career interest form asked for three possible jobs. I stared at the blank boxes for a long time. It was the third session of my GED prep class, and we were supposed to be doing a “self-assessment” to help us plan next steps. Everyone else in the room was writing. I still had nothing. The only thing I could think of was that I liked looking at the night sky, which didn’t seem like a job. I wrote down “astronomer” anyway, because I couldn’t think of anything else. The teacher, Ms. Oliver, glanced at my paper as she walked by. She didn’t say anything. The next day, she left a small library book on my desk. It was a field guide to constellations, with the cover creased and worn.
I had left home about eight months earlier. The neglect wasn’t the kind you get a movie about—no locked doors or dramatic bruises. Just years of figuring out my own dinners, getting myself to school when I could, and being told that wanting anything more was “impractical.” When I turned seventeen, I realized I’d been raising myself for so long that I might as well do it without the extra weight. So I left. Couch surfing gave me a place to sleep, but no address. Without an address, you can’t get a library card easily, and without a library card, you can’t access much of the internet. For a while, survival was just a series of narrow, logistical problems.
The GED class was held in a church basement. It had folding chairs and a faint smell of old coffee. It wasn’t a great place, but it was free, and it had a heater. For the first few weeks, I was mostly tired. I fell asleep at the table more than once. Ms. Oliver didn’t wake me harshly—she just put a granola bar next to my elbow and went back to writing equations on the whiteboard. I didn’t know then that this was a strategy. I thought she was being nice. Later, I realized that her approach was less about kindness and more about making things possible. She wasn’t trying to motivate me with a speech. She was trying to lower the number of obstacles in front of me.
That’s the thing I wish more teachers understood. When you’re a teenager who has left a neglectful home, motivation is rarely the problem. The problem is that your whole life is a pile of tiny, exhausting tasks. Finding a ride to class. Scrounging for a snack so you don’t have to sit through two hours hungry. Calling around to find out if your financial aid can be applied to the GED test fees. It doesn’t matter how much you want a better future if you can’t solve the immediate problem of your own existence.
I passed the GED five months later. On the day I got my scores, I felt a strange mix of pride and emptiness. There was no one to tell. So I went back to the church basement the next week, mostly out of habit. Ms. Oliver was there, sorting through a pile of donated astronomy magazines. She handed me one and said, “Do you know what community college has the best physics transfer program in the state?” I didn’t. She already had a folder. Inside were printed pages: the course schedule, a tuition waiver form, and a note about a work-study position at the campus observatory.
This is what practical support looks like. It isn’t just saying “you can do anything.” It’s sitting down with someone and saying, “Here are the steps, and here is the first one.” Ms. Oliver didn’t do my planning for me, but she did give me a map. A map with actual names and deadlines, not just vague intentions.
I think about that folder a lot now that I’m taking astronomy courses at the community college. The work-study observatory job hasn’t existed yet—the position is still being processed—but my advisor walked me through the paperwork. That’s another thing I’ve learned: people who help aren’t always dramatic mentors. Sometimes they’re just patient people who can explain what a FAFSA is without making you feel stupid for not knowing.
The astronomy career part is still uncertain. I’m not a kid with a telescope anymore; I’m a grown adult sitting in an intro physics class, sometimes feeling like I’m the oldest person in the room. There are days when I read about PhD programs and scientists’ résumés and think, “There’s no way I’ll ever get there.” But then I remember that I once stared at a blank career form and thought the only thing I was good at was looking up. Now I know there are actual pathways. There are associate degrees. Transfer agreements. Research internships that don’t require a fancy background. I didn’t know any of this, because no one in my life had ever gone to college.
If I could give one piece of advice to a parent, teacher, or caregiver who is trying to help a young person in a similar place, it would be this: ask them what they think they’d need, and then help with that specific thing. Not with advice. Not with a pep talk. With a granola bar. With a library card application. With a list of GED testing centers that have fee waivers. With a ride to class. With a folder of information about community college programs. It doesn’t have to be huge. The huge stuff—the confidence, the long-term vision—builds up later, one small concrete thing at a time.
I still have that field guide to constellations. It’s on my desk at home, next to a pile of physics problem sets. The cover is more creased than before. Last night, I used it to identify Jupiter through a borrowed telescope from the school’s loaner program. It wasn’t a perfect view—the sky was hazy and the telescope’s tripod was wobbly—but I found it. For a few seconds, everything stayed in focus. That’s probably the best way to explain where I am: still adjusting the focus, still waiting for the right conditions, but pretty sure of what I’m looking for.
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