When she was in fourth grade, Esther Cadman’s teacher asked her a question that changed her life: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
It’s a simple question every elementary school student has been asked, but for Cadman, this question opened the door to future possibilities, which was an idea she never had before: that she could be whatever she wanted. For that 10-year-old in Albuquerque, New Mexico, living in a home with alcoholism and domestic violence, that meant earning a doctorate.
Read more here from NAU News: Graduate Esther Cadman: After overcoming abuse, Navajo student finds her way back to earn her Ph.D.