First Generation College Students

I just read a fantastic blog post about First Generation college students.

This is one of my near-and-dear subjects with college students. I absolutely loved working with First Generation students- one of the easiest ways to get me to tear up would be watching them graduate and the proud/astonished looks on their parents faces as they crossed the stage with their diploma. Usually because these folks do not have an easy road into college.

This was a HUGE wake up call for me. I grew up in a mostly college educated family where it was simply assumed from Day One that I would attend college. There simply was no other alternative, period. But when I started working with students where this was not the expectation it was a rather large slap in the face.

Many of the parents I met who did not attend college were more fearful than their child about attending college. Many did not think their child would succeed, or that their child needed a college education- after all, they did not have one and seemed to be OK. Again- I could not imagine my parents thinking I would not be successful or that I did not need higher education... but that was the reality for some of these students.

The first step for many of these students was simply to get onto the college campus. I don't care if you are on the Harvard campus or your local community college's campus- there is an atmosphere of excitement, hope and overall activity when you step onto a college campus. When you're physically visiting some place it is far easier to see yourself (or your child) fitting in as a member of that community rather than simply hearing about it. There is the feeling of "Yes, I want to be here!"

It also takes away any pre-conceived notions about college when you are physically on the campus. The image of the sweater-vest wearing elitist goes away pretty quickly when you see the student walk by toting a backpack that is more than 50% of his body weight wearing a tattered hoodie and jeans that look like they were dug out from under the bed. So while in general you should always visit a college campus, I think it's especially important for a first generation student to visit the college campus and spend a little time there.

Pre-conceived notions or stereotypes are going to be somewhat of a theme in this blog, since it seemed like the first-gen students I worked with along with their parents had much stronger (and more inaccurate) ones than many students who came from college educated families.

Another was that not only was college far too expensive for that student but financial aid was far too difficult to untangle that you pretty much need a PhD to get through it. Maybe I was blessed with getting to work with a great set of financial aid people , but they were all super nice, very patient and willing to explain all of the mysteries of collegiate financial aid. But the key here again is to take a little time to sit down with the FA crew(and yep, these folks work evenings and weekends for this reason) and talk it through with them. Their job is to make financial aid easy to understand- not sell it to you!

Finally the last important part of starting a good college experience for first generation students is to meet classmates. These folks are your support network in school, when at 2 AM you realize there is a paper due tomorrow, you have lost the syllabus for the class, your significant other is being a $%@# and you realize there is no food in the fridge. (It happened to me more than once.) You can call them up for the assignment details and they'll talk you off the ledge and into coming to class in the morning. (Note: you will be expected to do the same for them.) This is where having a non-collegiate support group is hard; not having ever been in the situation they don't always understand and often the encouragement to quit school is given. I truly, truly wish I could say I was hypothesizing here and that I have never seen this happen. Unfortunately it happened with first generation students more than most.

Disclaimer: I am not trying to paint parents as the "bad guy" here. They just often seemed to be so afraid for their student that they would present a major roadblock in the student's success! My advice to them: It's OK! Your student will be just fine- maybe a few bumps along the way but everyone in college gets those! It's part of the growing/learning curve.

So, to sum it up: visit campus, talk to financial aid and make friends. Recipe for anyone's success, but especially important for the first-generation crowd. This may be why there are so many first generation college student organizations and programs.

Oh did I mention organizations? If your campus is big/lucky enough to have a First Generation College student group/club... JOIN IT!

Any experiences from students on being the first one in the family to go to college?