Reflections on Being a FirstGen Student

My spouse and I are first generation students. While two of my siblings did graduate from college after I did, my spouse’s siblings did not attend college. My spouse’s parents were extremely proud of him. My parents were just confused… and maybe a little afraid. Both my spouse and I were Pell Eligible students, scholarship/grant students, worked jobs during college, and took out student loans. My spouse’s loans were minimal, as he entered our university as an academically gifted transfer student. Our university had multiple resources for his major and career plans, as our university began as a feeder school for his chosen career path. I entered a major I was unsure of and found myself placed on academic probation, and ultimately program probation. My spouse’s parents showered him with new clothing, food for his residence hall room, and a few dollars, every time they visited. My parents never visited, never sent money, and my mom’s cooking became a memory. My spouse and I were on our own financially, and for me, I simply felt abandoned.

I filled out my own financial aid forms, sat in extravagant offices begging vice presidents for additional financial aid, defended my parents’ lack of financial support, and debated university vice presidents for independent status. I double checked my faculty advisor’s recommendations, worked hard during my academic suspension from my major program, explored career options, and began to wonder why I really thought I could be a college graduate. I almost gave up multiple times. I just could not understand why I was not succeeding academically. I was gifted and talented, a born leader. My grades in high school net me entrance into exclusive honor clubs and AP courses, and I really thought my chosen major was for me. My professors were zero help. At that school, and at that time in Alabama, academic success was up to the student. Lack of success equated to being undisciplined, lazy, and ignorant. I was not undisciplined, lazy, and ignorant, but I was in the wrong major. After selecting a major better suited to who I was in my core, my dreams, and my passions, I thrived academically.

Maybe that is why I am an advocate for our academic achievement center and why I treasure the formal and informal times I advise students. I know personally the destructive things that happen, the things beyond academics, when a student is in the wrong major. I know what it is like to choose a major and career path that are not good options for me. I know what it is like to need someone to guide me through options, and knit together who I am as a human (not simply academically) with career/major possibilities. I know what it is like to feel alone and abandoned. I know what it is like to wonder if leaving school is the best option. 

My story as a first generation student is why my doctoral work is in vocational discernment and calling. My story is why I serve students as an interpreter and a guide, a minister of introduction if you will, to possibilities, opportunities, and the resources needed to bring dreams to fruition. My first generation story reminds me not all journeys are alike, but the knowledge gleaned along the way has the possibility to transform lives and to change the world.  

I am a FirstGen Student,  

Katrina

#BeTheFirst #CelebrateFirstGen