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Effects of social status on education
Challenges faced by first generation students
Challenges faced by first generation students
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I am Nursing major and with that degree to become a Nurse Practitioner who specializes in the Cardiovascular System to reduce the rate of heart diease in America. I am a hardworking individual and I take my academics very seriously. I understand that I am at school for a purpose and know my purpose is to further my education. I am just trying to make it. My parents always told me growing up “ In order to get something you never had that I will have to do things I have never done.” No one prepared me for college, because I am a first generation college student. In addition to being a first generation college student ; I am also a first generation high school graduate. I use my my parents trials and tribulations as my motivation, because I want
to make my family proud. Everything I encounter in life is used as a learning experience. In order to grow and improve I open my eyes and heart to anything challenging and face it head on. One of my favorite philosophers Aristole once said “ You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” I am aim to be excellent! I know that if I shoot for the moon then I can only fall amongst the stars.
While first-generation college students are over half of all students in postsecondary education, exclusionary practices block their admittance into elite institutions. The outliers who receive admittance to the Ivory Tower may think they have made it—that their American Dream and long-held belief in the meritocratic ethos has finally paid off. Instead, they are confronted with educational stratification and social reproduction that was stacked against them long before they received the piece of parchment granting them access. The onerous task of navigating through unfamiliar academic and social situations often results in leaving. Can first-generation college students learn how to activate, manage, and accumulate social and cultural capital to navigate elite universities?
Throughout the length of schooling, students go through various changes. In their first year of school, children are required to make the transition from being at home for the entire day to being in school for a number of hours a day. These transition periods happen many times through the schooling years, but the most drastic changes occur during the transition from high school to college, where students weather numerous lifestyle changes. While each individual student goes on their own journey, certain themes remain common between different students. Studies are done to look at these themes identifying the numerous differences and similarities.
The author, Julia Brookshire Everett commenced the article, “Public Community Colleges: Creating Access and Opportunities for First Generation College Students”, by first characterizing first- generation college students and also expounding on the difficulties first-generation students encountered when acquiring post-secondary degrees. According to Everett (2015), the term ‘first- generation college student’ was first coined in the 1960s in order to regulate student eligibility for federally financed programs to aid students from low-income households.
Many people find the higher education a child receives, the higher the amount of money he or she will earn. Others find it is a waste of time and money to go to college after high school because of all the loans they would have to make up for after college. Many people have different point of views regards to the importance of college. In the articles Is College Worth It? and Why College Isn’t for Everyone, Leonhardt and Matthews have different opinions on the importance of college. Leonhardt argues that college is worth it because one who earns a college degree will be financially stable in the end, while Matthews believes that college isn’t for everyone because of the high-cost teenagers and adults will encounter when it comes to tuitions and fees.
In 1977 to attend a community college the average cost was $1,400, according to Julie Mack the author of What Baby Boomers Don’t Understand about Today’s College Students. Today’s tuition is roughly two times more than what is was in 1977. Also, with tuition being so low in 1977, their financial aid was enough to cover the cost of everything, without having to take out a loan. While today some financial aid barely covers your books and some are forced to take out a loan, which you eventually have to pay back. We millennial are judged for everything we do, or everything we don’t do. There is a lot of pressure on us to attend school to get that college degree so that we can make a living for ourselves, but it’s not that easy to just attend college
I worried so much about failing in college and not being about to fit in. But I am in need of this change to challenge me and prepare me for my future in which I’ll have more bills to pay, other than tuition, and a life on my own, completely free of my parents. College isn’t just a place for learning but also a place to grow personally and experience new things that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to do if I was still a high school student or in other words, a child. There is still a lot of growing up I have to do but I am no longer afraid it because I know that being an adult and acting like one doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy my life like a child
I feel as if though the best way to adapt to the harsh reality of a personal problem is being vocal about it, which can later help someone realize that it may not have been much of a personal problem after all. One issue facing college students around the world is the fact that many of them derive from households and families lacking any college alumni; therefore, making them first-generation college students. The difficulties that come along with attaching this moniker to students include tedious things such as spending countless, mind-bending hours spent on Google searching what school best suits one’s needs, or needing to delve a little deeper into websites regarding what differentiates an independent student from a dependent one. Minor
My family income is not that high. Both of my parents are high school drop outs, so they never made it to college. As we all know finding a job with a well-paid job can be dreadful without a high school diploma or a college diploma, but they manage through. To study for pediatrician is very expensive, but I and both my parents work hard enough to be in college. I am the first in my family generation to be in college and have a career set. It is not easy to be the first because at times it can be very frustrated because if I were to fail every single person in my family well look and maybe even be disappointed not mention my younger sister and cousin. They all look up to me and feel proud that I am the first to break that chain.
My parents have this perfect life for me pictured in their heads, and the first thing they see me doing is going to college. They expect the best of me, and so by going to college, I will not only have fulfilled their goals for me, but I will have accomplished one of the goals I have set for myself. In our culture, when parents come to the age where they can’t support themselves, it is the duty of the children to look after them.
Emerging adulthood is a period of the life span between adolescence and full-fledged adulthood, and college students are one of the particular groups that are experiencing the emerging adulthood. The students’ possessiveness is still not as high as mature adults’, so they cannot make a correct judgment on every situation. Since the internet spreads all around the world, more and more people, especially college students, use internet regardless of the day. However, the internet is like a double-edged sword, and it also brings negative effects. Indeed, the Internet causes students to spend less time in study and physical communication, and it also harms students physical and mental health, too.
I never once in my life sat down with myself and really thought about what my parents had to go through and all the sacrifices they had to make in order to ensure that I have a better life and a brighter future. Thinking back now, the frustration I feel eats away at me constantly that I was not more thankful and did not do more to help. This is most definitely a lesson that is learned better late than never. Going forward now I have three main focuses for when I enter college, the first is undoubtedly God and my spiritual life, which forced me to have this revelation. The second focus has to be my family, which I appreciate and value more than ever now. The final focus I have, but certainly not the least, is to be successful in my endeavors throughout college. Seeing how much my parents cared for me by seeing them work as hard as they could just so my siblings and I could live a better life gives me all the motivation in the world to work as hard as I can to not only give back to them, but for my future children to live an even better life than I
Many years ago I remember my parents telling me that in order for me to become successful a college education was a must. They always told me that if I wasn’t in school I could no longer live at home. Both of my parents attended college but neither of them finished. They did not want me to go down that same road because they really regret not getting their degrees.
My parents were partially right, hard work and experience paid off; I spent 13 of my 15 years in the grocery business in management and was paid well; however, the lack of further education due to the financial, informational and encouragement barriers, resulted in some missed opportunities along the way. Nonetheless, almost thirty years later I have overcome those barriers and my dream of going to college has been revived. I will graduate…. just in time to send our firstborn off to college with all the information and support she will need.
Throughout my life, I’ve always had big dreams and goals set for my life just like everyone else. I would constantly daydream and picture myself fulfilling my dreams. But, when the time came to actually plan out how I was going to reach my goal, I couldn’t figure out which path would lead me to my desired future. Every option I would contemplate on doing and try would somehow fail and crumble before my very eyes. After several attempts, I began to question if I was even good enough or qualified enough to go to college. To me, it seemed like the people who had a chance to make it in life were the ones with resourceful parents or the students who were in I.B or in numerous A.P courses. The possibilities of a little Hispanic girl like myself,
My journey as a student has always been focused on the path to college and success. Before I even set foot in kindergarten my mother, a college dropout, always told me that “honor roll wasn’t an option” and that I would be attending college in the future and achieving a degree. Most of the time I made these requirements. Most of the time I was awarded honor roll or had a newly edited list of colleges to attend, but sometimes life got in the way of my dreams of achieving success.