What We Talk About:
- First-generation college stories — how two very different paths shaped your adulthood.
- How expectations, finances, imposter syndrome, and identity play into the college journey.
- Why finding your people matters more than the school itself — and how community becomes belonging.
- Raising college students while still becoming adults yourselves — and how your sons’ college + military paths mirror and diverge from your own.
- What higher education is getting wrong, what it must do to survive, and why connection still matters more than policy.
Quote of the Episode:
“There are so many paths. And nobody gets to tell you which one is right except for you.”
Conversation Starters:
- What parts of your own coming-of-age shaped who you are now?
- When did college first feel like yours — or when did it not?
- How do you talk to young adults about pathways: straight lines, zigzags, detours, or restarts?
- What role do people — not places — play in creating belonging?
Resources & Mentions:
- ASU’s charter: “We define ourselves by who we include and how they succeed.”
- Conversations on cultural identity, intersectionality, and inclusive teaching from Denise’s TEL 212 course.
- Reflections on the Gulf War and how early adulthood moments spark service, purpose, and identity.
- The evolving landscape of higher education — enrollment cliffs, NIL, mental health, and the future of the college experience.
Connect & Reflect:
Share your own college story:
What surprised you? What shaped you? What still lingers from that version of you today?
Tag us @theroughdraft or visit deniseleighwaters.com/ourroughdraft to join the conversation.
Mini Moment:
Denise tells the story of discovering — a decade later — that she hadn’t actually graduated due to a missing credit…and how a VHS-based child development class finally closed the loop. Sometimes the rough drafts of our lives really do come full circle.
Try This:
This week, ask someone you love (a partner, a teenager, a friend) about their college expectations vs. their reality.
What did they imagine? What surprised them?
Let it open a conversation about identity, belonging, and the many paths into adulthood.
