I didn't think much of my identity as a first-generation student until I reached college and started realizing the shared struggles that I had with other first-gen students. It was the "small" things, like filling out the FAFSA or CSS. I use the term small lightly since the two processes have stressed me out every single year that I've filled them out, but to other people, they're nothing.

I find it hard to wrap my head around people who have families who know the ropes so well. I found out about Mount Holyoke from a college-educated family member whose daughter was going there at the time. I didn't know schools like Mount Holyoke gave out the most financial aid until I was told.

I filled out the Common Application, FAFSA, CSS, and many more documents by myself. I didn't think much of it. While my dad would provide me with the necessary numbers and documents, I was to one to fill it out. It's almost a yearly tradition to get the PDF of my dad's tax return and start the FAFSA and CSS. Since I'm not home when the CSS is due, I have to call him and ask him the several invasive and irrelevant questions that the latter has, since I can't find them on his tax return. We both get irritated by them.

There were additional documents concerning custodial parents, how many dependents they had, etc. I do know that I spent hours on Adobe Acrobat, using it to edit the pdfs and hoping that the school would accept it because the words weren't exactly on the line and the signatures were what my dad and I drew with our fingers to the touchscreen of my laptop. In hindsight, I don't know why I didn't just print it out, write down the information, and scan it, but I just didn't think about it at the time.

During high school, I never really understood the process of sending your SAT, ACT and AP scores to college. I didn’t take test prep classes because they were overly expensive. I did the first two since I needed to, but I still haven't submitted my AP scores because I just didn't know. I also didn’t know until later on that some schools only accepted 4s or 5s and that a 3 (which is passing) still wasn’t enough. I recently emailed registrar and they said I could still send them, which was a huge relief because I'm taking 12 credits this semester. My best friend who's also first-generation was the first to tell me about it. I have quite a few instances like that.

I went to a decent high school, but one that didn't prepare me for the intensity of college level writing. I was hit with this reality when I got back my first reading response from my first year seminar. I realized that I needed to get it together so my suffering grades wouldn't continue to suffer. That meant going to office hours and asking my best friend, who's an amazing writer (shoutout to Andrea), to help me. She continues to help me with my writing, but that one class improved my writing so much. I occasionally still go to her for help, though. I didn't go to an intense private school or nationally ranked public school, so I wasn't initially prepared for that jump between senior year of high school and my first year of college. I think people can relate to me on that.

On Friday, November 4th, I went to the first ever Five College First Generation conference at Smith College. A lot of my peers were there as well. It was so refreshing to see and hear people who understood what it was like, as well as bringing light to their own stories and realizing that I could relate as well. We were in these elite schools, but had our issues with it, like lack of transparency or resources on campus. I brought up the time Mount Holyoke announced the tuition increase last April or so, just slipping in that the cost of the school would go up by 3,000 dollars towards the end of some email. I told them about how I broke down crying when I called my dad because I thought I was going to have to leave. He said that he would make it work, that he would do everything in his power, but he was already paying the most he possibly could at the time. I didn't want my dad to work himself into the ground even further. I had done everything and felt so blessed to go to a school like Mount Holyoke, just to be pushed out like that? I couldn't transfer immediately either since several of the SUNY (State University of New York) transfer deadlines for the next semester had passed. I was devastated. Financial Aid soon came to SGA to explain the increase and how our financial aid would adjust to it (I don't know how true that statement was), but the fact was that if our SGA didn't get them to come to the meeting, would they have even come? Did they think three thousand dollars was nothing? To me, it's everything.

I’m proud of my first generation identity, but I acknowledge that I’m a few steps behind of people who aren’t and my college journey essentially feels like a game of catch-up. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to catch up. I’m currently in a system that wasn’t created for me nor people like me. I’m constantly aware of that; my identity doesn’t allow me the privilege to be complicit and just merely focus on my studies because there are bigger issues that are out there. I can’t just turn the other cheek and pretend that it doesn’t take an emotional toll on me. I’m tired. I’m burnt out. If I wasn’t a few steps back, maybe I wouldn’t feel this way. I don’t know.

While my dad and I share many questions about college, what I’m learning, and just how it works, he offers me endless amounts of emotional support that I could never thank him enough for. Since he never finished college, I do what I do for not only myself but for him as well. I want to make him proud. I don't carry a sense of entitlement to this type of education, I really do feel grateful to have a dad who works so hard to get me through here and wonderful people in my life who understand. I just wish that schools would offer more resources to people like us, who didn't get a head start. We didn’t start on the same level, even though they seem to think that we did. I wish they would take extra measures to make sure we didn't get lost since we were already behind in the first place.