Going to college can be one of the most exciting experiences of your life. Most of us move away from our parents, and into a rather small living space with someone we either know very well or have never met in our entire lives. For some of us, the changes that going to college bring are welcomed and easy to process. However, the adjustment isn’t always easy, particularly for those with parents or siblings who never went to college.
Being a first-generation college student is challenging in more ways than people think it is. (In fact, the majority of people I know just assume that both of my parents went to college, when in fact they didn’t.) What a lot of people don’t realize is that it can be difficult on our parents as well, both emotionally and financially. Without the college experience in the family, we as students are attempting to navigate this whole higher education thing right alongside our parents.
The struggle is real here, guys. The pressure is on us more so than others because our parents expect us to be more successful and educated than they were at our age. And sometimes, their expectations are just impossible to meet. College is nothing like high school, and at times it seems like our parents don’t understand the difference. I was an honor student in high school with a 3.9 GPA when I graduated; I rarely missed school and took as many AP classes as I could. Because of that, my parents assume college will be just as easy, and it’s far from that. Classes are harder, there are more homework assignments and papers, and waking up on my own is seriously the biggest struggle of my life. But our parents don’t fully understand that, and it’s not their faults.
Not knowing what to expect from college is typical of freshmen; however, not having someone to guide you along this journey can make it seem like you’ve just moved to a foreign country. The only advice I could get out of friends and family was to join clubs, but when you’re not incredibly sociable like I am, clubs just aren’t the answer. Many schools offer first-generation student scholarships or mentorship programs where other students who went through the same experiences can help guide you and, in essence, teach you how to be a successful student.
To those first-generation college students who feel there’s no one struggling like you are, I promise there are others in your exact situation. It’s OK to be struggling to find yourself in this thing called “adulthood,” and it’s OK to not be the perfect college student as well. The most important advice I’ve been given so far is to never give up. You made it to college, your parents are proud that you’ve come farther in your education than they ever did, and just the thought of that alone should be enough to keep you going during those all-night study sessions. No one wants to feel like they’ve let their parents down, and I guarantee that as long as you never give up, you will never have to worry about that.
