Narratives of financially challenged ESSU Guiuan graduates who attained educational and career success

Background/Objectives: Education lessens the challenges that an individual will face in life. The more knowledge gained, the more opportunities will open up for individuals to achieve better possibilities in their career and personal growth. The purpose of this narrative study was to understand and discover the experiences of financially challenged ESSU Guiuan Graduates attaining educational and career success. Further, the researcher sought to establish a clearer picture of the full story behind how the informants’ of this study handled their financial challenges and struggle to make ends meet and afford their education. Methods/Statistical analysis: This study used the narrative inquiry approach to qualitative research. As Czarniawska (1) describes narrative research as an understanding of the narrative account of individual experiences, or series of events/actions, in spoken or inwritingwhich is chronologically connected. In general, this study deals with biographicalresearch as a potent tool into the world of identity, understanding meanings and acquired practical knowledge. Findings: The data gathered generated three themes namely: 1.) Background of their poverty experiences, and has the following sub-themes: a) Relevant Poverty Experiences, b.) Resilience amidst Poverty Experience; 2) Experiences, Challenges, and Highlights of their Life amidst Poverty, and has the following sub-themes: a) Idea and the secret to success, b) Personal Success, c) Idea of Poverty, d) Relevant Experiences of Poverty, e) Challenges and Strategies to Success, 3.) Sense-Making of Personal Success and its sub-themes emerged, namely: a) Life Hardships and Trials, b) Determination and Perseverance, c) Personnel Reflection and Prospect, d) Ideals in overcoming obstacles. Novelty/Applications: This study concluded that the willingness of every individual to conquer and overcome financial challenges with determination and perseverance paved the way for achieving their intended goals and ambitions which eventually leads to self-fulfillment


Introduction
Students from low-income families are significantly less likely to attend college and complete four-year degrees compared to their peers (2)(3)(4)(5) . As cited by Carter (6) , a catastrophic, long-lasting, and generational impact of poverty on children's lives and their families. There are about 20% of children in the world live in indigence. Mostly, children are regarded as the greatest victims of poverty because of their family's financial situation in which they become powerless to alter. Poverty had an adverse impact on children's opportunities in life and well-being in terms of physical, emotional, social, cognitive abilities, and school achievement (7)(8)(9)(10) . Moreover, families from low socio-economic status (SES) have been found to have limited financial and educational resources as well as limited access to social and cultural capital. This deficiency in family resources is adversely related to children's well-being (11)(12)(13) .
In Asia, particularly Singapore, education is an essential way for social mobility (14) . Thus, children from low-income families who perform poorly in school have to exert an effort to catch up with their peers or risk remaining within the poverty circle. Further, parents strive for their children to send to private schools to obtain a quality education. It is generally viewed that education in private schools is more beneficial to students as compared to public schools. However, public schools have lower tuition fees than private schools, because public schools have support funds from the government. It is, therefore, an economic burden for mediocre families who have three or more children (15) .
Also, financial is the hardest problem faced by resource-deprived families. As for them, without money, it hinders them to attain a good future. Usually, there is always hope. Knowingly, poverty is not a hindrance to obtaining success in life. It depends on the person to work hard, to make impossible things possible. Yet, man's determination is a leeway to change one's life and to defeat poverty. If everyone is determined and hardworking, no one is poor.
It is known to most that poverty is the greatest stumbling block to one's education. But to others, consider poverty as a challenge for it doesn't mean that being poor, you don't have the chance to dream big and attain success. However, nowadays, public or state universities and colleges (SUCs) in the Philippines are subsidized and supported by the government under the Republic Act 10931 otherwise known as "Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education" which gives a full subsidy to students who intend to earn tertiary or technical-vocational education. In other words, economically disadvantaged students can have their education for free. Only that, they should strive hard to beat the odds especially if someone has strong determination.
There are many people who believed that there is no impossible even if you belong to an economically disadvantaged families. And still, some of those people that have inadequate financial resources were able to support their children finish their studies and land a decent job.
With this, the purpose of this study is to explore the stories of Graduates who belong to the economically disadvantaged but still were able to attain success, especially in their academic journey. This study may likewise spawn a plethora of ideas and experiences on how these financially challenged graduates highlighted the meaning of their educational and career success.
The purpose of this narrative study was to understand and discover the experiences of the financially challenged ESSU Guiuan Graduates attaining educational and career success. Further, this narrative inquiry sought to understand that despite the difficulty, the informants were still able to attain success, especially in their academic performance. This also aimed to explore the significance that they attached to emotional situations, important events, and milestones of their lives.
Specifically, this study sought answers to the following questions: 1. In what ways do financially challenged graduates to narrate their experiences in attaining education and career success? 2. How do financially challenged graduates make meaning of their educational and career success?

Materials and Methods
This study used the narrative inquiry approach to qualitative research. The narrative research design enables the researcher to arrive at an understanding of the research participants' experiences by way of a thorough examination of their life stories. Fraenkel, Wallen, and Hyun (16) explained that an important characteristic of narrative research is the participants' remembering of crucial events in their lives, which they termed as "epiphany. " These events are then narrated with respect to time, space, and context (social, political, cultural). In general, this study deals with biographical-research is a potent tool into the world of identity, understanding meanings of individual's experiences and acquired practical knowledge and every day codes present in the process of interrelation, identification, personal and cultural reconstruction (17) . Further, in this type of narrative study, the researcher writes and records the experiences of another person's life (18) . https://www.indjst.org/

Informants of the Study and Site Area
The researcher purposively selected the ESSU Guiuan Graduates who are financially challenged and were able to attain educational and career success despite being from low-income families. An in-depth interview was conducted with four informants who were chosen based on the set characteristics and objectives of the study. The informants of this study were the six (6) financially challenged graduates of Eastern Samar State University Guiuan, who were able to attain educational and career success. The informants were selected purposively based on their characteristics and the objectives of the study. Likewise, the researcher identified the informants who could provide insightful information about attaining educational and career success despite being economically disadvantaged persons. Further, the informants' profiles were identified to establish their eligibility as potent sources of responses.

Research instrument
A semi-structured interview guide was used to gather valuable data and information during the in-depth individual interview.
The questions were open-ended, structured, and logically arranged. The interview guide consists of two primary questions based on the sequence of the research questions. Each primary question is composed of probing questions to enable the researchers to collect enough, relevant data for the study. However, the researcher allowed a high degree of flexibility since the researcher asked follow-up questions to elucidate some points of the research.
An in-depth interview is a qualitative method of inquiry that uses a pre-determined set of open-ended questions to collect the narratives of human experiences and with the opportunity for the interviewer to explore particular themes or responses. Further, this kind of interview collects detailed information in a style that is somewhat conversational. It is used when the researchers want to delve deeply into a topic and to understand thoroughly the answers provided. Marshall and Rossman (19) posited that an interviewer must possess skills in framing questions and probing for answers.

Data gathering procedure and data analysis
Data collection involves a series of activities the researcher engages in during this phase of study (20) . After securing the informants' approval and consent in the conduct of the study through a formal communication letter and consent form, the researcher conducted a three-stage interview process with the informants as suggested by Jowkar et al. (21) in their study of women superintendents in the US. The initial interview stage was conducted to obtain consent and obtain the personal narratives of the participants in view of their leadership and development experiences. The second interview stage was conducted to refine the details of the participants' experiences and for them to be able to reflect on the meanings of their experiences, and thereby providing richer and thicker descriptions. The last interview stage was used as an opportunity for the participants to check the ambiguities of their responses and for the researcher to raise other probes if the need arises. This was made before the writing of the manuscript.
This qualitative study employed the general interview guide to solicit informants' narratives but keep the consistency and the structure of the interview process. The researcher used open-ended questions framed in everyday language to allow informants to provide detailed stories, asking questions verbalized to elicit narratives, and consisting of broad primary questions complemented with probing questions. Each interview session is expected to last at least one to two hours.
Moreover, the researcher took an important role in asking questions from the informants so that the interview process could generate meanings of the informant's experiences. As suggested by Merriam and Tisdell (20) the "researcher is the primary tool for data gathering and analysis", that who should be "responsive and adaptive".
The concepts of responsiveness and adaptiveness refer to the characteristics of the researcher that enable him to effectively capture the important events, moments, and stages of the participants' lives that can be used to answer the objectives set in this study.
Narrative analysis is one of the forms of qualitative data analysis that is commonly used in a narrative study. According to Riessman (22) , narrative analysis refers to a family of methods for interpreting texts that have in common a storied form.
Since this study was qualitative, the researcher employed narrative thematic analysis using Creswell (23) strategy as cited by Butina (24) . The following five steps were observed to analyse the data gathered: (1) organization and preparation of the data, (2) obtaining a general sense of the information, (3) the coding process, (4) categories or themes, and (5) interpretation of the data.
Further, the researcher used an approach suggested by Ollerenshaw and Creswell (25) that incorporates different elements that go into the story. The elements of narrative analysis involved: collecting the stories of personal experiences in the form of an interview, restorying based on narrative elements, rewriting the stories into a chronological sequence, and incorporating the https://www.indjst.org/ setting or place of the participants' experiences. In the organization and preparation of gathered data, begin with transcribing the audio record from the interview. In collecting stories of informants' experiences, the researcher looked for life-course stages or experiences to develop a chronology of the individual's life from the growing stage of their career until the attainment of their educational and career success. Also, the informants' stories were analyzed. The researcher took an active role in the 'restorying' of the stories by reorganizing the stories into a framework that makes sense. Beyond the chronology, the researcher also looked at the themes that emerge based on the coding process of data. Moreover, themes emerged helped to provide a more detailed discussion of the meaning of the story. This qualitative data analysis is a description of both the story and the themes that emerged.
However, since the goal of the researcher is to understand the experiences of the informants, it is important to use codes, categories, and themes in order to explicate these concepts.

Bracketing/ Research reflexivity
Bracketing is a method used by some researchers especially in qualitative data analysis and interpretation to reduce the potentially deleterious effects of unacknowledged preconceived ideas related to the research and thus to increase the rigor of the study.
Further, bracketing is used to protect the researcher from the cumulative effects of the close relationship between the researcher and the research topic that may develop during the process of qualitative study (26) .
Bracketing is holding the elements in abeyance that define the limits of an experience when a researcher/participants are unveiling a phenomenon about what which they want to, and they already know a great deal (27) . Moreover, Ahern (28) describes bracketing as a way of demonstrating the validity of the data collection and analysis process.
Hence, to keep away from biases in the interpretation of data and organization of the narratives, this requires the researcher to put aside his own belief about the research topic or what one already knows about the subject before and throughout the narrative study.
However, subjectivity statement is important in qualitative research as Bochner and Riggs (29) explain, "Storytellers always tell their stories to somebody in someplace and the conversational partners and surrounding environment can influence what gets told or doesn't, and how". Thus, it is crucial to consider the kind of interpersonal bond that is created between teller and listener".

Enhancement of trustworthiness
The information acquired by the researcher along the course of the study was treated with strict confidentiality and for academic purposes only. Also, all information will not be used by anyone without the prior consent of the researchers and participants of the study.

Ethical consideration
This study is subjected to certain ethical considerations. First, all the informants were asked to sign consent forms regarding their full participation in this study. These forms assured that the informants voluntarily participated in this research. Also, they were fully informed regarding the objectives of this research and reassured them that this will remain confidential and will be used solely for academic purposes.

Themes arrived
Based on the responses of the informants, the researchers were able to come up with themes using the Creswell narrative analysis approach.
In different ways financially challenged graduates to narrate their life experiences in relation to their personal and professional development. The participants, who are financially challenged individuals, recount various experiences from their early childhood privation experiences until their rise to become successful individuals. This, therefore, provides a rich and detailed background of their lives.
In the narration of the informants on their experiences in obtaining their educational and career success despite the financial challenges they encountered, three themes emerged from the narratives as can be gleaned in the coding grid, namely: 1.) Background of their poverty experiences, and has the following sub-themes: a) Relevant Poverty Experiences, b.) Resilience https://www.indjst.org/ amidst Poverty Experience; 2) Experiences, Challenges, and Highlights of their Life amidst Poverty, and has the following sub-themes: a) Idea and the secret to success, b) Relevant Experiences of Poverty, c) Challenges and Strategies to Success, 3.) Sense-Making of Personal Success and its sub-themes emerged, namely: a) Life Hardships and Trials, b)Determination and Perseverance, c) Personnel Reflection and Prospect, d) Ideals in overcoming obstacles.

Theme 1: Background of their poverty experiences
Findings provide evidence that the informants had poverty experiences even at a very young age. The early life course experience on poverty has a wide range of impacts on the participant's career development and educational success, as well as into adulthood. The participants told their stories on the relevant poverty experiences that enthused them to aim for a better life.
Narratives of all six (6) informants showed experiences of being resource-deprived individuals, how they caught up in their parents' economic struggles to experience and their unmet needs experience. As the participants shared:

Relevant poverty experience Informant 1:
"During my childhood, there were times that we cannot take our meals three times a day due to lack of resources and…we don't have the same resources and luxury with other families…, there were even times that we cannot get and have our wants. Our resource was only enough to provide us with our needs. " Informant 2: "I witnessed how my parents experienced financial challenges in raising their children, they are just selling ready-to eat foods and snacks to students since our canteen before was stationed near Trade School, now ESSU Guiuan. " Informant 3: "I was born to a family who was earning through the baking of bread, processing copras (the drying coconut meat), and would even sometimes go on fishing. Unfortunately, one of my siblings got sick and we went through financial crises so I had to hold off studying and bravely decided to work instead. " Informant 4: "I remember one time, my mother went to Llorente town, brought a coco wine (tuba), dried fish, and wave matt, and went home bringing rice. So even we're 17 children, we can eat complete meals a day, however, meals were divided to us, no refills since our food was just sufficient for the day". Informant 5: "I remember when I was in my younger years, many times that our electricity had been cut-off because my parents cannot pay the bills and we have to endure the hardship of studying using a lamp. We have also to walk for almost one kilometer to fetch drinking water and look for firewood elsewhere for cooking our meals". Informant 6: "I was raised by my parents helping them make a living while studying my elementary education even at an early age of 6. I help my parents prepare the fruits and vegetables at night, and they sell it in the market the next morning, then I go to school to study".
The informant's narratives proved that informants experience economic challenges with their family; however, despite these, they are still hopeful that they can survive all of these challenges in life. The narratives of the informants illustrate wide-ranging experiences describing resilience, being tough or had the ability of the informants to 'bounce back' from difficulty. Filipinos are often labeled as having a strong adherence to family-oriented values that emphasizes cohesiveness. Conger and Conger (30) conceptualize that "family resilience as processes occur over time in response to a family's specific context/situation and stage of development. " Moreover, family resilience viewed as evidenced by certain indicators, such as close and supportive family ties.

Theme 2: Experiences, challenges, and highlights of their life amidst poverty
As financially challenged individuals, they encountered a host of challenges that were able to shape them into who they are now. As they did so, they practiced various skills in consonance with the situation and learned valuable lessons along the way. As opined by Fuller (31) , extreme poverty is not the end hope. The important things needed to break down the walls from the imprisonment of poverty are outside influences, support networks such as friends or family, awareness of other opportunities, and accessibility to resources. With these, a new life is possible.

"It is really hard to face many problems at a time, especially when it comes to financial matters, you really have to do everything and set aside your ego and pride, even ask loans from your enemy if the situation requires you to do so. But just like the storms, all problems shall pass and you just have to endure it because there will always be a rainbow and sunshine after a devastating storm. "
Informant 6: "Problems will always be part of our life, we just need to face it with brave heart, determination, perseverance and of course faith with the almighty. Our faith will strengthen us in times of difficulties and it will give us hope and courage to find ways to overcome all our problems. Education will always be the passport for new opportunities to success" To get an education is the first step to finding a job and earning income. The lack of education renders many jobless and stuck in poverty lives. The Philippine Statistics Authority released the multidimensional poverty statistics based on an initial methodology. It is called the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) and serves to complement the income-based measure of poverty. The MPI is a measure that intends to capture deprivations on various dimensions. The Education dimension had the largest share or contribution to overall deprivation (MPI) at 36.5 percent and 36.9 percent in 2016 and 2017, respectively (32) . Based on statistical data, children who live below the poverty line have lower chances of having school success than their peers (33) . Evidently, from the stories shared by the informants, their poverty experiences led to obtaining personal success. There are no one-size-fits-all strategy that will lead you to success. Each of us has our own strategies to outdo the challenges in life and obtain success. Though attaining success is enormously difficult, and there are also many obstacles along the way. But one of the best ways to guarantee success is by being aware of what challenges are up against you and making sure you are prepared for them. The study conducted by Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges and Hayek's (34) views behavioral engagement, positive emotions as entwined with academic outcomes as dimensions of success. In the informants' narratives, they exemplified their uniqueness in overcoming the hitches in the journey toward success.

Theme 3: Financially challenged individual's sense-making of personal success
This part answers the raised question of how do financially challenged graduates make meaning of their educational and career success and provides a detailed account of the meanings and ideas which the participants attach to the concepts of poverty to success.
The third theme that emerged out from the narratives of the informants is the Sense-making of Personal Success. This was subsequently derived from the following: a) Life Hardships and Trials -which recounts the different experiences of the participants coming from a low-income family which they describe as something emotional during the course of achieving success in their lives. b.) Determination and Perseverance -which relates despite poverty, they were able to cope up and achieve things they want to. c.) Personal Reflection and Prospects in their Life -which presents an intimate look into their personal lives and plans. d.) Ideals in Overcoming Success -which captures the views of the participants on how to achieve success amidst poverty.

Life Hardships and trials Informant 1:
"It is still fresh in my mind during my childhood. Because I came from a poor family, situations were more emotional. You can experience not eating three times a day, you will feel that you are carrying all the burdens of the world. So instead of thinking about those worse situations, I convert it in a positive way wherein I will see to it that this worse situation will not happen again. Having that in mind, I could manage and think of a positive way for me to achieve my goals in life and to earn so that a worse situation will not happen again. So recalling those saddest situations, it is one of my tools in order for me to be more successful or to reach success. One of the best lessons in life for me is, whatever God's blessings I received; whatever situations or achievements I obtained, I will not forget those people who helped me. " He was about to deal with that 'antique' and was not able to have that for our family needs and brothers' allowance who were in college at that time. That's how our parents tried all things for family's sake. But it never happened that we're not able to eat in a day because my parents do everything so that our basic needs be provided. Though, only during examination time, they gave money to buy snacks for our recess because their priority was to give us food and other family basic needs. " The informants shared their hardships and trials before they attained educational and career success. In a study conducted by Harrell, which was cited by Kpolovie, Joe, and Okoto (35) , attitude means everything in handling difficulties in life. Having a cheerful disposition towards every challenge life throws at you can lift the burden off your shoulders. Their stories suggest that despite all these trials, maintaining a positive disposition helped them turn their situations for the better. The narratives illustrate the perseverance and determination of the informants. Their collective story deals with the steadfastness in doing something despite difficulties and delays in achieving success. In the study by Madhlangobe et al. (36) perseverance, persistence, among others despite adversities in life can lead one to success. Likewise, having a firm or fixed intentions will help in attaining success.

Personnel reflection and prospect Informant 1:
"I have many prospects in life as of now gaining master's degree of course is just part of my dreams. I also have a lot of goals in life but as of now, I cannot say to myself that I am not yet a successful individual because I am still suffering from situations like lack of professional skills, lack of personal skills, lack of life skills. Maybe ten years from now I can achieve my professional goals because as I have earned a master's degree, and maybe ten years from now I will make sure that I can earn a doctorate degree or PhD degree as my professional goals. " Informant 2: "I may be ten years from now I will still be in DPWH. Maybe then, I will be in a managerial position. At this time, I belong to the rank and file position. After ten years maybe those who are in a high position will be in their retirement so by then I will have the opportunity in lieu of their vacated position. " The informants told their stories and reflected on their personal experiences and their prospects in life. Brocket and Hiemstra (37) stated how imperative self-direction in attaining success in life. Strategies in facilitating self-directed learning to enhance the ego within us. "Don't take life as a race, just work hard, and focus on your dreams, little by little you will be able to achieve those goals before you know it. Do not be afraid to commit mistakes and fail, instead, have the courage to always stand up after every fall and learn from all your mistakes to improve yourself to be better. Lastly, don't compare yourself to others, compare yourself to who and what you are yesterday. " Informant 6: "Do not think negatively, accept all problems, and face it with a brave heart and mindset that you will be able to surpass it with the grace of God. You must set your goals, and work hard little by little according to your plan. It is okay to sacrifice some of your free time and hobbies because, in the end, you will reap the fruit of your labor which is a success. "

Ideals in overcoming obstacles
The narrative points out that it often seems like the only constant in life is the challenges standing between you and your goals. Narratives littered with examples of people who have managed to overcome and thrive on the struggles they experience. However, the struggles faced by the informants offer them a path to growth and success.

Conclusion
This study raised questions to explore the experiences of financially challenged Eastern Samar State University Guiuan graduates in attaining their educational and career success. Following the reflexive, emotional and interpretive nature of account request, the members' biographies, and their experiences from the growing stage of their career until the attainment of their educational and career success which are thusly introduced in a procedure called "re-storying".
The narratives of the six informants provided evidence of their poverty experiences even at a very young age. The experience of poverty early in the life course has far-reaching impacts on the participant's career development and educational success, as https://www.indjst.org/ well as into adulthood. The participants shared their stories on the relevant poverty experiences that enthused them to aim for a better life. However, despite the financial challenges, the informants are still hopeful that they can survive all of these challenges in life.
Their narratives depicted that individual learning experiences over the life span developed sets of skills, such as problemsolving skills, work habits, emotional response, and cognitive responses which are used in coping with the environment and in the struggles of their journey towards success.
Sense-making of personal success of the informants recounts the different hardships and trials during achieving success in their lives; however, they were able to cope with and achieved things they want through determination and perseverance. Evidently, from the informants' narratives, their stories dealt with the steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. However, informants shared their ideas on the concepts of how perseverance and determination paved the way to success.
There was also a strong sense of pride as they spoke about their families. The participants highlighted that despite being labeled by society as "low-income" and being aware of their families' financial struggles, they refused to see their families as poor or identify as economically disadvantaged as it was not part of their lived experiences.
It is recommended, therefore, that the accessibility to quality education must be among the top priorities of political leaders and educational leaders to allocate more funds for continuous improvement of higher education institutions (HEIs) and draft policies that will strengthen the delivery and accessibility of education. They shall focus on providing equal opportunities to everyone especially the deprived and less fortunate sectors.