Summary

In her essay "I Am Not Proof of the American Dream," Tara Westover reflects on her experiences of poverty and hard work during her first semester of college, and how these experiences shaped her understanding of the American dream. She recalls waking up at 3:40am to go to her job as a cleaner at the engineering building and then working as a server in the cafeteria to make enough money to support herself. 

Westover explains that she wrote about her experience growing up in a Mormon family who kept her out of school, and the challenges she faced in pursuing an education that ultimately led her to earn a PhD from Cambridge University in her memoir Educated. She explains that her struggles and eventual success were not straightforwardly inspirational, as some have suggested to her after reading about them. 

Instead, Westover recalls feeling tired and overwhelmed by the constant pressure to earn money. She also describes the sense of costly trade-offs that defined her life at that time, as she had to take on extra jobs to pay for tuit...