When I read the transcripts from Teresa's change of plea-she initially said she had a bachelor's degree and then changed her testimony to an Associate's Degree. I looked up Berkeley and this is what they offered http://berkeleycollege.edu/academics_bc/school_of_business/degree_program_1499.htm#page=overview I do believe she probably spent four years getting the AAS degree. My theory is at some point she interned to be an assistant buyer and ended up working as a sales associate. Dina claims to have met her when they were both "working at the mall". I don't think they were ever particularly close because they are both vapid and shallow people. Paths crossed over time and hence this 15 year "friendship". I don't recall if Teresa was even at Dina's second wedding but with a guest list of over 600 people she should have been. I guess with Tommy inviting the gas station attendant it wasn't exactly a select group.
I think Teresa was "sheltered" in that she is essentially a non intellectual, who was more interested in frilly, silly things and rarely left new Jersey and her circle of Patterson wannabe married to tough guys. She landed Joe after probably years of posturing. I do think she has auditory processing issues and her brother Joe seems to need Melissa to "read" things for him.
Lastly, I question these folks who are her fans and see her as a constant victim. Teresa, from what I have seen, has always put Teresa first. Her unwillingness to ask or even question important documents leaves me scratching my head-are you Teresa the business woman or Teresa the dullard?
I think your theory of Tre's professional background is quite plausible. She could have worked at a nail salon or department store cosmetics counter from, say, 1988 - the year she would have graduated high school - until she finished her AAS degree in 1994 (however long she took to complete that degree.) She could have also worked as a sales associate at some point prior to graduating from her program. She then likely interned to be a buyer (giving her the excuse to say she worked as a "buyer"), but probably ended up back at Macy's as a sales associate, or perhaps at some position above the level of sales associate but below a sales manager (if such a position exists, I don't know.)
She and Dina have given intentionally vague answers as to how they met, either "working at the mall" or "at a salon"; they could have met prior to 1994 while coworkers at a nail salon or cosmetics counter ("at a salon" AND "working at the mall"), or perhaps after 1994 under similar circumstances. I think Teresa and Dina are what passes as close friends to one another; as you say, they are both shallow, vapid, and narcissistic, although Dina is, to all evidence, far more intelligent and socially presentable than Tre. Therefore, a "close friendship" for them would not live up to the standards of a close friendship for others. They probably had fun shopping and whatnot together, and Tre is a good sidekick for Dina because she is too dumb to question her.
I think a lot of my disagreement with people here has come from how people have chosen to evaluate Teresa, evaluations based on the wildly conflicting statements she's given about herself on the show, portraying herself as a savvy businesswoman, a spoiled housewife who can't bear to live in used houses, and a helpless victim, and then the even more conflicting evidence we've uncovered outside of what she's said on camera (e.g. that she lived in blue-collar Paterson until, like, 2004, a few years before the show began airing.) Teresa clearly came from a blue-collar background, but I think she's always been narcissistic, spoiled, and entitled, and always felt she "deserved" better than what she had, by hook or by crook. She's hard-working in the most literal sense of the word, arguably, but she felt her hard work entitled her to a multi-million dollar house and a Towaco lifestyle, even if she had to cheat, lie, and steal for it. Joe seems to enjoy breaking the law for breaking the law's sake, and has the audacity (and arguably, stupidity) to act as if he can break the law with impunity. They are and were a perfect match for each other, even if it took Tre years of riding around North Jersey in Joe's Camaro (or whatever car he had back in the day) for him to marry her. I think you can't differentiate meaningfully between blue-collar Pateson Tre, middle-class Lincoln Park Tre, and faux-rich Towaco Tre. They're all different phases of the same person.
I actually think the best way to describe Tre isn't really sheltered, but rather as having closed horizons, since she wasn't being "sheltered" by anyone. I think she had the one-up on her immigrant parents from her teen years on. For most of Teresa's life, the poles of her personal, professional, and educational existence have probably been Garden State Plaza, the Willowbrook Mall, and the Short Hills Mall, North Jersey's three great emporia of consumerism, with occasional forays just outside the New York Metro to Seaside Heights, Atlantic City, and the Poconoes (and perhaps Florida, which is experientially just outside Metro New York in some places?). She hasn't felt the need to broaden her intellectual horizons to compensate for her closed spatial horizons. In North Jersey, we'd describe her as all Jersey derisively.
Edited October 27, 2014 by vrocotamyncG1vNJzZmien6fCrr%2BNqamipZWptq6x0WeaqKVfqbyxtcJoaGpwaGd6tb7ImqOsZZGjsW7A0aKZrqSRqbawutJmpp9lmqq2pMWMmqWdZaSnsnC8wKCcaG5oZA%3D%3D