By Autumm Caines
I had no idea that I was a “first generation college student”. Or, for that matter, that there was such a term used to describe a group of people. I was several years into my first full-time professional staff appointment in higher education when I discovered all of this. If I am pressed to describe my work in higher education, in a nutshell, to someone outside of higher ed I usually respond with “I teach teachers about teaching and sometimes about technology” – it is all very meta.
So, there I was working at the teaching center in a small liberal arts university in Central Ohio, pretty early in my career, when somehow I ended up having lunch with someone who worked in Student Services. We had just met and were telling our respective higher ed staff origin stories to one another, when after I finished mine she said:
“That is so cool that you were a first gen student! I’m currently organizing an event to put first gen faculty and staff in conversation with our first gen students. It is kind of like a speed dating format. Would you like to be part of it?”
My response was, “Wait, I’m a what?” “You are working with who?”
She went on to tell me all about this demographic of people who attend college but whose parents never did. How they often don’t have those same kind of intuitions about how higher ed institutions work because they didn’t grow up hearing stories and getting guidance about college from their parents. She told me that one part of her job was to create programming for these students, help them feel welcome, and figure out barriers that were often just the bureaucratic workflows of the university. These struggles resonated with me and I remembered my own struggles with those workflows.
I decided to participate in that first gen event. It was actually a kick-off meeting for a mentorship program to partner first gen students with first gen faculty and staff. Just like speed dating, first gen students met with first gen faculty/staff and spent a few minutes talking about their experiences before they rotated and moved along for another few minutes with someone new. After each round each person indicates if they felt that their experiences aligned to that person’s and if they might be a good mentor/mentee for one another – this happens in private on a little scorecard. Afterward the organizers look at all the scorecards and if two people agreed that they wanted to connect as a mentor/mentee then their contact info was shared with each other.
I learned that even though everyone there was first gen that our experiences varied widely. There were broad differences in family support and connection. Also, varying supports financially. Some students were fine with the university systems and were navigating those well but were visibly anxious about the academic work and worried about disappointing their families. Others worried about growing away from their family and that college would change them in ways that would no longer allow them to connect. Some had more financial support than others. The list went on and I realized first gen is not one experience.
I know college is not always a transformational experience for everyone but it really was for me. The term first gen helped me to put some of that transformation into context. I found a part of my identity with the term but in many ways it also drew into the light other elements. The fact that I was a non-traditional student and that I was actually a first generation high school graduate provided more context. The first gen term and frame is an important one when we consider the college experience but we also have to keep in mind just how diverse this group can be.
