Advice About College from First-Generation Students—Your High School Years

by Kathleen Cushman

December 2005 ♦ Paperback ♦ 88 pages ♦ ISBN: 0-9762706-3-3 ♦ $8.95

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"I didn't have a big sister or brother or even a cousin to go to and say, 'What did you do in order to get in?' So I read other people's accounts in books. Things don't always fall in your lap, you know what I'm saying? Like, everybody's not searching you out. You have to take the initiative." — Niema Jordan, Oakland Tech High School '04, Northwestern University '08

How do students put college within their reach, if their families have not gone before them? How do they defy stereotypes and low expectations about their future? How do they advocate for themselves academically, find the information they need, keep their emotional and social balance?

For the past year, WKCD has interviewed first-generation students enrolled at colleges across the country, collecting their answers to these and other questions. In a new book, First in the Family: Advice About College from First-Generation Students, we offer their challenges and insights, to help students following in their footsteps—and the teachers, counselors, and other adults whose support means so much.

These students share a fierce determination. "Education was going to be my ticket out of here," says Eric Polk, now an undergraduate at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. "The first train that comes to Nashville, I'm getting on it. I won't be defined by a statistic, like 'how people who grow up in this area are more likely to turn out.' Not me! I won't!" For Aileen Rosario, a student at Passaic Community College, her family identity became "the one that goes to college, the one that's trying to do something for her life."

They follow diverse dreams. Aileen hopes to be a criminal justice lawyer and Niema a journalist. Naixing Lei, who attends college in San Francisco, wants to combine his interests in Asian-American studies and business. Native-American Karen Powless sees social work as her calling.

The undergraduates whose stories fill First in the Family include:

At community colleges:

• Hazel Janssen, a white student from Denver, completing high school while enrolled at Denver Community College
• Jackie Comminello, a Mexican-American student at Denver Community College
• Aileen Rosario, a Dominican-American student at Passaic County (NJ) Community College
• Naixing Lei, a Chinese immigrant student at City College of San Francisco

At state or mid-level colleges and universities:

• Mike Morris, an African-American from Mississippi on a football scholarship at Brigham Young University in Utah
• Josh Cryer, an African-American from Indiana, at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, in Indiana
• John Berry, a white rural student attending college after six years in the work force, at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
• Karen Powless, a Native-American student who attends Oklahoma State University in Oklahoma City, where she is a leader in the Native-American Students Association
• Stephanie Serda, a third-generation Mexican-American attending Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

At highly selective colleges and universities:

• Eric Polk, an African-American student from East Nashville (TN) attending Wake Forest University in North Carolina
• Niema Jordan, an African-American student from Oakland (CA) attending Northwestern University in Chicago
• Stephen Torres, a Mexican-American student attending the University of Texas in Austin
• Rosa Fernandez, a Dominican immigrant student attending Wellesley College in Massachusetts

Click here to read the first chapter, "You Are College Material."