Michelle Obama Shares College Throwback And Advice To The Class Of 2018

As this year’s round of high school graduations are around the corner, Michelle Obama shared a throwback photo of herself at Princeton, as well as some advice for incoming freshmen.

Obama attended the Ivy League school in the 80s and she reflects back at the “scary” times she had there. “I know that being a first-generation college student can be scary, because it was scary for me,” she wrote in her caption. “I was black and from a working-class neighborhood in Chicago, while Princeton’s student body was generally white and well-to-do.”

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The former first lady shared how she never really stood out for her looks growing up, until she went to college and was also seen because of the color of her skin. But she eventually found friends who embraced who she was. “[I] never stood out in a crowd or a classroom because of the color of my skin before” but soon found close friends and a mentor who gave her the confidence “to be myself,” she continued.

She challenges the upcoming graduates “to be brave and stay with it” no matter the challenges.  “Going to college is hard work, but every day I meet people whose lives have been profoundly changed by education, just as mine was,” Obama says. “My advice to students is to be brave and stay with it.”

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The end of the caption has the hashtag #ReachHigher, which was a White House program that she launched in 2014 “to inspire every student in America to take charge of their future by completing their education past high school.”