Teenage Michelle Obama Looks Unrecognizable in Old Photo as She Recalls 'Scary' College Days

Former first lady Michelle Obama was once warned that she was not 'Princeton' material by a school counselor. However, she ultimately enrolled in the Ivy League university, but she eventually felt let down by the racial and color prejudice."I'm expecting brilliance. Genius. And then what I discover is, wow, there's a lot of arbitrariness to this stuff, you know?" Obama told CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King in a 2018 interview. The same year, she shared an inspirational self-note with an unrecognizable throwback picture from her college days. The former attorney talked about feeling 'scared' and 'vulnerable'. "This is me at Princeton in the early 1980s. I know that being a first-generation college student can be scary because it was scary for me. I was black and from a working-class neighborhood," she captioned the post on Instagram. 

She explained how her working-class Chicago upbringing contrasted sharply with Princeton's student body, which was "generally white and well-to-do." "I’d never stood out in a crowd or a classroom because of the color of my skin before," she added. However, she conveyed her appreciation to her classmates and mentors, who helped her develop into a remarkable individual."But I found close friends and a mentor who gave me the confidence to be myself." On a concluding note, she urged students to conquer self-doubt, "Going to college is hard work, but every day I meet people whose lives have been profoundly changed by education, just as mine was. My advice to students is to be brave and stay with it," she ended. 

As per CBS News, during the interview, Obama recalled being ridiculed for her skin color by a school counselor. "I had grown up with love, and support, and encouragement, and high expectations. But here I walked into this room with a woman who really didn't know me, because it was a big high school, and she had to make a quick assessment," she said while describing how the counselor turned her away without even making an effort to learn more about her. "Grade point average? Yeah, you're a good student. You know, your scores are good. You're black," Obama recounted her words. "You're here in this public school. Maybe you're stretching.' She didn't even know my brother went to Princeton. She didn't ask me any questions. She didn't try to figure me out." 

The former first lady made a strong point about being judged by status, community, and color. "We could probably go into any room of black women, or people of color, or people who grew up in poor communities, or rural communities, and you'd ask them, 'Has anybody ever told you you couldn't?' And everyone would raise their hand," she said. Obama was on the show to promote her memoir  Becoming. The book was released on November 13th, 2018, the throwback picture was a prelude to the book's contents and her life prior to becoming first lady.