Joshua Adams-Miller has never seen college in his future, until he receives encouragement from an unexpected source.
Joshua Adams-Miller was born in 1989, in Sun Valley Idaho, to a family that has been in Idaho since 1873. He grew up in SE Boise under the care of his mother, who provided him more opportunities than anyone could ask for. However, he developed a sense of independence very early. Whether he was riding the city bus alone at 10 years old to get home from summer school programs or organizing large groups of friend to sneak out in the middle of the night, he’s always had a curious mind, and it wasn't beyond him to break the rules if it meant he got to learn something. He has always loved music and learned the viola and saxophone in school and self taught himself the piano and guitar. In his teens, he was sent to a jazz camp on a scholarship to hone his skills on the piano. Over his life, his curiosities have drawn him to the sciences repeatedly but by no means was it a clear path that brought him to his studies at Boise State as a Material Science Engineering Major. Like a sunrise, slowly illuminating the horizon, he realized that the best way for him to contribute to the future he wants to see was to bring to the world the materials that will make it possible.
This story originally aired on November 29, 2019 in an episode titled “Thankful: Stories about gratitude”.
Story Transcript
It was a beautiful spring morning and I was headed over to my girlfriend’s mom’s house for breakfast. She had decided that we should make banana pancakes because our favorite make-out song was by Jack Johnson.
We started cooking and it was a little surreal. It was a warm morning, beautiful spring. Everyone was getting up, getting ready for their day off, and my beautiful girlfriend and I were trying to tag-team some flapjacks.
At my house there was a legitimate anxiety any time someone was cooking that that house was going to burn down, so I was in a happy place. It was peaceful to me.
Once we had finished our breakfast, her mom said that she had to do her math homework before she left. I admired that because my mom worked a lot. She was out of town and so she didn’t really know when I had assignments or not. And so when her mom was asking her to do her homework I was like, well, that’s nice, I guess.
She ended up getting a little impatient, though, because she asked her mom for help and her mom was like, “Figure it out.”
I knew that her mom was the dean of Boise State somewhere and I was like that’s crazy. I thought if you had a dean for a mom you’d get math help, but I guess not.
But math was my best subject so I sat down and I started helping her. Soon as her mom saw that, she came up to me and she asked me like, “Are you going to go to college?”
I was like, “Probably not. I know my family can’t afford it and I know my grades aren’t good enough to get a scholarship so I don't know. I don't really think it’s in the cards for me.”
She's like, “Well, do you know the FAFSA is?”
I was like, “No.”
She's like, “Well, it’s a federal government program that helps you gives you money for free to go to college.”
I was like, “Really? Okay.”
So she sat me down at the computer and she showed me how to fill out the FAFSA. It was like pulling teeth trying to get my mom’s social security number but we got it done. I filled out an application and it was a little surreal. I feel like a door just opened and I was terrified. I hadn’t really planned on it. I didn’t know what college was like. I didn’t have any sort of expectation and it was terrifying.
But what she didn’t know was that I was a bad student because I rarely turn my assignments in on time. And when I did it’s because I finished them in class and snuck them in the pile of papers when the teacher wasn’t looking. There's that.
Not too far after that, I was at her dad’s house. I liked going to have dinner with her dad because her dad was an interesting man. He was a DNA expert. He worked with the Innocence Project helping wrongfully incriminated criminals get out using forensic DNA evidence. It’s pretty amazing to me.
He also liked to asked these philosophical questions that made me think. There was one time he was talking about the dimensions of the universe and he mentioned a hypothesis that we are just brains floating in space and that reality is just a simulation. He asked me what I thought and I was like, “I don't know. I mean I've seen The Matrix but I don't really know what to think.”
He also asked me, “Well, are you going to go to college or not?”
I still wasn’t sure. The money made me worried and something was sapping my confidence and I wasn’t sure that it was.
In between bites of his spring mixed salad he's like, “Well, I've been saving some money for some time and I've been looking for an opportunity something like this. And helping you get through college is something I might consider,” and I was floored. I mean how could someone be so generous?
What if I failed? It’s hard enough to impress your girlfriend’s dad without taking money from him. And I just didn’t know what to say to that. I have a lot of pride and so I just thought about it but I didn’t give him an answer. We just moved on.
Later on in my senior year, my mom was out of town working and I was at the house by myself. My girlfriend invited me over to stay the night so I wouldn’t have to be alone. It was a secret sleepover, though. Her mom didn’t know about it.
It was easy to sneak into her house. The stairs were right by the front door and she was on the first floor in the back and so I would just park down the street and wait until she fell asleep and I would get the signal and I'd come up. My girlfriend would crack the door and open it with a beautiful smile and it was great.
This time, I was walking up the stairs, I got about four steps, “Who are you? What the fuck are you doing? Get the fuck out!”
I was terrified. Her mom’s silhouette just materialized out of nowhere and I was frozen. I couldn’t see her face, her eyes, but I could feel her burning a hole through my chest. I didn’t know what to do.
My girlfriend tried to say something and I just left. I went home. I was alone. I was scared. I didn’t know what had just happened to our relationship. I didn’t know if I was going to go to jail. I didn’t know if I was ever going to get to see her again. I texted her and I didn’t get any response.
Not until the next day and she said, “We can’t see each other until you go and meet my parents.”
It was a couple of excruciatingly long days until her parents asked me to meet them at Blue Sky Beagle and I was like okay.
I walk in, go to the shop, it was business as usual. People were talking, enjoying their pastries, laughing, pretty inappropriate for someone who felt like they're walking to their death. So I meet with them and they asked me to order. I’m like, “All right. Sweet. This is my last meal.”
We go outside and we sit down on the patio. Her dad was sitting next to me, her mom was sitting across from me, and I still shake from how nervous this makes me. But I was searching their face to see what was going to happen because I didn’t know. They were serious but I didn’t think they were angry, so I just sat there and soaked in my guilt and waited for them to break the silence.
They asked me, “What were you thinking?” I didn’t really have an answer.
They're like, “You're 18 now. Our daughter is a sophomore in high school. There are serious consequences for what you're doing. You can never do it again.”
The only thing that I could think was do I get to see her again?
Not too much longer, I was sitting at the park with my girlfriend and it was a beautiful spring day. I was holding her hand. I was very happy. It was nice. But I knew that we needed to talk because I was graduating soon. She had two more years of high school and I didn’t want our relationship to be torn apart by trying to force something that wasn’t going to work. And we broke up. I love the fuck out of her and between I love yous and my tears, it was hard.
The thought of college went away with the relationship. Soon after, I graduated, moved out. Moved in with a couple of my friends and we partied a lot. We were smoking weed, played videogames. There were eight of us in four apartments and there was only six apartments in this cul-de-sac so we had our animal house.
But it was unsatisfying for me. I mean, the year before I was a successful athlete, I was a talented musician, I was the ASPCO of my student council and here we are partying every day of the week and I was making sandwiches in a Mediterranean restaurant. I felt like I needed to do something more.
My roommate started selling weed and it made me uncomfortable but I didn’t really care. I mean, we all know weed is illegal for bullshit reasons but I figured as long as it’s something that helps him succeed and do something more than just survive then who am I to judge. What’s the worst that could happen?
Well, there was one Wednesday that I came home from work and there was a bunch of cars in the parking lot. I was like, “Oh, right. Another Wasted Wednesday.” That’s what we dubbed our party Wednesdays.
There were two girls walking up the door. The pizza guy was there and I got out of my car to go let them in. Soon as I grab the door to open it, I opened about two inches and it slammed shut and my roommate yells, “Go away. We’re not having a party anymore.”
I was like, “I live here. Let me in.” I was like, “This jerk doesn’t want to share his pizza.”
And I still had the doorknob turned so they couldn’t lock me out. I pushed again, got about an inch. This time I really tried, I forced my way in. As soon as I got my head in the door I was looking down the barrel of a 9mm pistol.
I froze, stood up. I didn’t know what to think. Do I grab the gun? Looks like he's waiting for me to do that. Is he going to shoot me? What does he want? I look behind him. All my friends were sitting on the couch hostage.
Once the tension starts to settle just a little bit, he demands my money and I still didn’t move, afraid that if I moved I would do something that I couldn’t take back.
He waves the gun in my face and he's like, “Get out of the door.” I move and I step aside.
He's like, “Sit down.” I sit and he runs out the door and gets in a black Mercedes and drives away.
After that day, I had this serious conversation with myself. I was like I know I’m smart. I know people expected more of me. I expect more of myself. So I decided that if I’m going to be lost and struggling, I’m going to be doing it trying to achieve something.
Now, here’s the good part. I made a lot of mistakes and I spent a lot of time figuring out how to be a good student. Now, I’m this close to getting my degree in material science engineering, I work in the technology development for a company that made $30 billion last year. And if there's any chance at all that I get to do what those people that impacted my life did for me, it’s all going to be worth it. Thanks.