Getting In Is Never The Hard Part. Staying In Is. Nearly four in ten students who start college do not finish, and most of the time the reason has nothing to do with intelligence or test scores. It has to do with whether the road fits the person walking it, and whether that person has the self-knowledge and the skills to stay on it when it gets hard.
In Persist, Dr. Tremayne Thurman, OTD, gives students and the parents, counselors, and mentors who guide them a practical framework for the years after high school. The book starts with a hard truth about why so many capable people stop short, then walks readers through three moves that change the odds: know who you are, using personality and emotional intelligence rather than other people's expectations; choose the right road from the real options, whether that is a four-year university, community college, the trades, the military, or a road of your own; and build the everyday skills, from belonging to recalibrating to managing stress, that keep you moving when motivation runs out.
Persist is not a pep talk and not a ranking of the "best" schools. It is a guide to making the next decision with clarity instead of pressure, and to finishing what you start. Whether the reader is a high school senior weighing options, a returning adult ready to come back, or a parent who wants to help without taking over, Persist offers a steady, honest plan for the road ahead. Your destiny is not decided by where you get in. It is built by whether you stay the course.
