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You’d think landing in the J.F.K International airport would seem like a blur to a four year old foreign child joining his family looking for better opportunities in America. That four year old foreigner is me, Naween Mendis. I migrated here to America from my motherland, Sri Lanka on a freezing winter day in December and I recall evidently of my experience getting off my twenty four hour flight. Exiting through the doors of the airport for the first time, I got my first reality of what we call Winter! The cold and snowy climate was not for me. I could not wait to go back home to see my grandparents again and live comfortably in my adapted warm weather. It wasn't until later, I slowly realized that this was not the case. I would not be going back “home” for a while and I also would never see my grandparents again. Growing up as an undocumented immigrant, my family had to overcome a lot of …show more content…
They showed me that anything can be overcome, it's just a matter of how much determination and hard work you put into something! I regret not acknowledging this until I grew older and started realizing what they put on the line for their kid’s futures. I’ve seen my parents encounter troubles anywhere from walking fifteen miles to come get my brothers or I from school when we got sent home sick to even having to miss some family funerals back in Sri Lanka because of the disability to travel back at the moment. Not only was this burden put on my parents but my brothers just as much. These troubles entered their lives after graduating high school and applying for colleges. All their hard work couldn’t be awarded because of the lack of ability to claim scholarships and financial aid. This limited them to entering straight to a four year school right away due to tuition cost. With my parents struggles in mind, they made the most of what they had and a little more than a year later found great
Halfway through dinner I decided to tell them. “That 's great baby, you know we support you no matter what,” says my Mom. As I bring out the numbers for college tuition, their faces seem to changed from excited to nervous. “I cannot afford that, honey,” says my Dad quietly, being unemployed then. That upset me because I was determined to follow my dreams.
I remember the first time I came to America; I was 10 years old. Everything was exciting! From getting into an airplane, to viewing magnificent, huge buildings from a bird’s eye view in the plane. It was truly memorable. After staying few days at my mother’s house, my father and I wanted to see what Dallas looks like. But because my mother was working the whole day, it wasn’t convenient for her to show us the area except only on Sundays. Finally, we went out to the nearby mall with my mother. My father and I were astonished after looking at a variety of stores. But after looking at different stores, we were finally tired and hungry, so we went into McDonald’s. Not being familiar with fast food restaurants, we were curious to try American
How does being the first in one’s family to graduate from college impact one’s desire to finish college? Some of the major barriers first generation college students face include lack of motivation, lack of support, and low income finances. Some freshman students might lack the motivation to do well in school because of the lack of appropriate role models or mentors in the academic environment. These difficulties can be tied to lack of support at home; the parents might not be concerned about their child's education, maybe the parent lacks the ability to guide them through college, the parent might not have the process of having not navigated it themselves. Parents might feel embarrassed that they don’t have any knowledge to help them through college.
I have always grown up around the influence of hard work. My mother and father’s life together began off to a rough start. My mother got pregnant at the age of 20 with my brother. Her family was not very supportive of it; therefore, she was on her own. She used to tell me about how she would sit and cry in a one bedroom apartment that she lived in with my brother wondering what she was going to do. Although she had to grow up faster than she
I walked around unsteadily all day like a lost baby, far away from its pack. Surrounded by unfamiliar territory and uncomfortable weather, I tried to search for any signs of similarities with my previous country. I roamed around from place to place and moved along with the day, wanting to just get away and go back home. This was my first day in the United States of America.
A solution to this problem would be if schools were to implement first generation counseling centers on their campus, which consist solely of former first generation students turned faculty members. If this were the case, students would have someone they can feel comfortable seeking advice from due to it being someone who’s been in the same rough spot. I reached out to a friend of mine, a fellow first-time member of his immediate family, to see how he feels about the subject. I asked what he thought the hardest part of the college process was and whether or not he would’ve sought out a first-generation center had it been accessible for him; he responded with, “The hardest part has to be figuring all this stuff out alone. Kids with college-educated parents genuinely don’t understand how lucky they are to have someone in their household, even remotely close to remembering how to fill all these papers out.
It was May 25, 2013 when I, accompanied by my friends, went on a journey that would change my life. We departed ourselves, very early in the morning, from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, not knowing what lied before us on this mysterious trip. The airport was filled with many international people and everyone was in a hurry to reach their desired destination. It was hectic, but we gradually made our way through the very thor...
Being a first-generation student has been life changing in so many ways. Applying for college wasn't the easiest thing to do for me considering that my parents did not attend college. To overcome the struggle, I had to reach out to various resources such as my friends who are currently attending a four year college. The most complicated part was completing the paperwork for the FAFSA. There are multiple documents that create a maze of paperwork that I had to work my way through to complete the FAFSA. One of the most nerve-racking parts of the process was not knowing for certain if I had completed all of the paperwork exactly as specified. The FAFSA was definitely the most challenging obstacle I had to overcome. My Freshman year of High School,
Steve Cohen shows the disparity between the rising cost of college and a family’s capability to afford it. Cohen explains “Tuition has risen almost 1,200 percent in the last 35 years, and the sticker price for many four-year private colleges and out-of-state public universities exceeds $250,000.” Moreover, he goes on to say that even at public universities, it is about $80,000 for four years for tuition and other college related expenses. Later in his article, Cohen explains how this leaves middle-class families in a very uncomfortable situation. The parents or other money-making entities in the household want their student to go to college and earn a degree, but now there can be an element of stress in figuring out how the fees will be paid for. Furth...
I am an immigrant well, kind of; I wasn 't born here, but then again I wasn 't raised anywhere else. My parents brought me over when I was a child so they would be the immigrants since they made the decision to come here; I was kind of brought along. The year was 1994, I was 3(three) years old and my family and I had just been offered the opportunity to come to the U.S. my parents took it leaving everything behind. We were one of the lucky ones; our process was clean and simple. My dad worked for a religious organization, the Seventh Day Adventist Union in the Dominican Republic, as a canvasser; he sold books related to health and ministry. I don’t remember anything about those early years, but from that young age my life was impacted by the
For most lower class families, the hopes of getting financial aid to attend college is pretty slim because they all too often make over the allotted amount based on certain criteria, and most families are over extended with their finances as it is to be able to apply for loans. The young adults can’t get the loans without the parent’s help, so they have to wait until they reach a certain age and that’s why in my opinion, there are so many 25 year old or older students attending college so they can get the loans on their own, or hopefully make enough money out of high school to pay for
My ancestors moved from Canada to America, they started living in the northern areas and worked very hard to earn food. When I was small the life was very good, all the kids of the community used to play and enjoy the time, but as I started growing up I realized that life is not just about playing around. Most of the people in my community do not know the actual meaning of life and they have spent their whole life inside a specific area and with limited knowledge. I started to find opportunities to study and learn more things that no one knows. In my quest for knowledge and curiosity to know the unknown I learned many things.
My heart was pounding as I boarded my flight leaving the Bangkok International Airport. A flight attendant in a grey dress with a red bow draped over her shoulder announced; “Welcome aboard flight AA350 to the United States.” My journey began that day.
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
The fleeting changes that often accompany seasonal transition are especially exasperated in a child’s mind, most notably when the cool crisp winds of fall signal the summer’s end approaching. The lazy routine I had adopted over several months spent frolicking in the cool blue chlorine soaked waters of my family’s bungalow colony pool gave way to changes far beyond the weather and textbooks. As the surrounding foliage changed in anticipation of colder months, so did my family. My mother’s stomach grew larger as she approached the final days of her pregnancy and in the closing hours of my eight’ summer my mother gently awoke me from the uncomfortable sleep of a long car ride to inform of a wonderful surprise. No longer would we be returning to the four-story walk up I inhabited for the majority of my young life. Instead of the pavement surrounding my former building, the final turn of our seemingly endless journey revealed the sprawling grass expanse of a baseball field directly across from an unfamiliar driveway sloping in front of the red brick walls that eventually came to be know as home.