I'm a first-generation grad student who went to an Ivy League school. I couldn't measure up to some of my rich classmates.

• I'm a first-generation graduate student who enrolled in Columbia Journalism School.
• While there, some of my classmates were rich and didn't have to work part-time like I did.
• I struggled to fit in with the richer students, but they motivated me.

Most of my peers were jet-lagged, but I was too excited to sleep.

My Columbia University journalism school classmates and I were on a 10-day trip to Ireland for our "Covering Religion" class. We would soon meet and interview people of all faiths, spending time at churches, synagogues, mosques, and a Buddhist retreat. We'd speak to Sikhs, Protestants, Catholics, Hare Krishnas, and even the then-president of Ireland, Mary McAleese.

While my upper-middle-class peers had traveled to Europe and across the globe, my trip to the Emerald Isle in March 2009 was my first time on a new continent and only the second foreign country I had visited.

So, when my classmates and I left the airport and hopped on a charter bus to start our journey, I couldn't contain my excitement.

"I've only ever been to Canada and a handful of states," I told my seatmate, who was surprised that I had only ever visited one country.

At the time, I was a reporter at a newspaper, earning $34,000 a year before taxes and living with my parents to make ends meet. However, it still wasn't enough to cover my commuting expenses and other bills. I could never measure up to some of my Ivy League classmates.

I come from a family with not a lot of money

While my graduate school was filled with people from all different backgrounds, I found that some of my Columbia classmates took a year off to attend graduate school full time. Meanwhile, I had to continue working and attending school part-time. I couldn't afford to take an entire year off and risk not getting a job immediately after graduating — not to mention dealing with loans and interest payments.

As a first-generation graduate student, I didn't come from money. At the time, my mother was retired and living off a modest pension.

During my undergraduate years at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, there was more of a sense of parity between my peers and me. Many of the people in my friend group and I met during the summer of 2001 at an Educational Opportunity Fund program session. The program provides financial assistance and support services for kids like me who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Several of my friends and I worked on-campus jobs to help cover the costs of what EOF and other scholarships didn't cover. Many of us stayed in the tri-state area during the summers and either worked or took extra classes. I did both.

Many of my classmates were also from different parts of New Jersey with similar stories: We were either from immigrant families, the first in our families to go to college, or both.

I struggled to fit in with my Columbia classmates

By contrast, I experienced culture shock when I enrolled at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

While there were some students like me, many others I met in grad school came from wealthy backgrounds. Some were even children of diplomats. For the first time, I had classmates from all over the country and the world.

It wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Whereas at Rutgers, I would have theoretical discussions about journalism in certain European countries, at Columbia, I'd have real-world talks with classmates from France, Germany, and other locations about what constitutes media objectivity.

But we struggled to connect beyond our shared interest in media. Most of my classmates used the word "summer" as a verb. I typically avoided talking about nonexistent upcoming vacations that would call out my socioeconomic status.

I'm now living the life I've always dreamed of

I'm 41, and over a decade after earning my graduate degree, I've paid off most of my debt.

I also allocate a significant portion of my disposable income toward traveling. Since then, I've visited all 50 states, 25 countries, and counting.

I'm happy to finally be financially able to travel to faraway places, but a huge part of me still feels like that working-class girl scraping to get by.

Carmen Cusido is a Cuban-American writer based in northern New Jersey.