BE PATIENT • "Don't follow the crowd because you will get confused on what you really want," was the advice Ester would give to her younger freshman self. "Try to look into what you really, really want in the future. Be patient, you'll figure it out." Ester graduates from college this month, but she already teaches kindergartners. Even with the hectic life of a college student, she braved Houston's purgatorial traffic to class, she didn't take out any loans, paid her college tuition with her own hard-earned dollars, and still was very active in her church community. And she's graduating early! With Latin-American parents, Ester's a first-generation graduate (to-be), her mom was illiterate until her late twenties. It wasn't just hard for her, but it was hard for them too. They couldn't understand the weight of studying for college because they didn't go to school, but they knew it was important to her. They saw her studying and pushed her to keep at it. Ester's graduation is a great ...