The Disadvantages with First-Generation College Students
Compared to Continuing College Students The college experience is likely to be the same for first-generation and continuing college students. The factors that determine and change the course of the student’s performance in college all matter in their backgrounds such as family finances, support from family, and lastly preparation for college. These components are important primarily because first-generation students experience less preparation for college due to issues within their households and more pressure from family to complete their college degree. Of course, pressure is something experienced by everyone and does not exclude regular college students, but the pressure to become the first in their family to complete that level of education could hurt someone’s mental health. In many cases, first-generation students’ mental health is impacted the most causing more emotional distress than students that already came from one or two parents that have attended college.
Students that come from a family that have one or more parents completing college help prepare for what is to be expected from the transition from high school to college and the brand-new expectations regarding choosing classes and advice. In contrast to those types of students, first-generation students are more independent regarding the transition to learning everything on their own since neither parent has experienced it before. According to Lisa M Nunn’s research conducted across a university, she recorded conversations between both first-generation students and continuing college students. One of the questions that were asked for both students involved asking their families for any advice or support regarding college. Brandon, a first-generation college student, replied to this question by saying “I don’t tell my mom or my family anything I’m going through. I just keep it to me.” (Lisa M. Nunn, 2019). Brandon’s experience with college has been more isolated from his family since nobody has experienced college yet in his family. Unlike Brandon’s response, Grayson, a continuing college student, replied by explaining how both of his parents completed college, and whenever he needed advice regarding college, they had plenty of experience to share knowledge. Lisa recognized that Grayson’s parents would “constantly share their college wisdom” (Lisa M. Nunn, 2019). Both students demonstrate the difference between how the background of their parents has affected them and it demonstrates how Grayson has the advantage when seeking help, unlike Brandon.
As mentioned before the backgrounds of students do have an affect towards their experience throughout college and if enough preparation is done for them then it’ll make the transition easier for them. First-generations college students do not have the opportunity to take preparation or have anyone in their family to seek advice since they are the first ones to experience for themselves. Families like that would have to become role models and people to go to for advice or knowledge since they are first to experience it. As for continuing college students, they have the opportunity from their parents to share their experiences and wisdom and with high levels of education comes a more stable income for their families. When Nicole M. Stephens, MarYam G. Hamdani, and Mesmin Destin conducted a study on how students grades reflect before and after an informational panel. These panels had both first-generational and continuing college students speak and answer questions and when asked questions they had opposite answers. When asked “Can you provide an example of an obstacle that you faced when you came to [university name] and how you resolved it” they both dealt completely differently (Stephens, Nicole M., et, 2014). The college student that had both of their parents attend college responded by saying “I went to a private school, and it was great college prep. We got lots of one-on-one attention, so it was a big adjustment going into classes of 300 students... I felt less overwhelmed when I took the time to get to know other students in the class” (Stephens, Nicole M., et, 2014). Coming from a family where both parents attended college demonstrates how it does have benefits towards the students and it reflects on how the parents try to lead them on the right path for preparing for college. When it was the first-generation college student’s turn to speak, he said “my parents didn’t go to college, they weren’t able to provide me with the advice I needed. So, it was sometimes hard to figure out which classes to take and what I wanted to do in the future” (Stephens, Nicole M., et, 2014). As a result, of being a first-generation student his parents believed in him doing everything himself since they’d never experienced college themselves, having no opportunity to provide advice for them. Seeing both perspectives on how it affects college life shows how much more of a disadvantage first-generation student with a low-income family have in college.
Many first-generation students tend to face the same circumstances surrounding their journey throughout their college experience where it differs from continuing college students. Cynthia Gomez shares their personal experience being born from two hardworking immigrant parents from Mexico and her experience living in a low-income community. Cynthia pursued perfectionism in her education, leading her to distance herself from others, to achieve good grades and feel accepted and loved by her family. She would explain “I wholeheartedly believed that I was unworthy of happiness, and ... I didn’t know who I was, who I wanted to be” (Cythnia Gomez, 2021). The mindset of having to be enough and to do great things in college impacted Cythnia negatively since she was the first one to attend college it added pressure for her to become something perfect, causing her to cut off her relationship with anyone she had. It reflected poorly with her mental health and commented “Living in a low-income community, my parents focused on providing us with the necessities and less on emotional connections... emotions weren’t really discussed. You were perceived to be weak and incapable if you were struggling.” (Cythnia Gomez, 2021). Her families background had no real beliefs on certain topics such as mental health and emotions giving Cythnia more of a decline in her mental health since she was trying to achieve perfection for them in the beginning. In many ways first-generation students face more issues regarding the way they act on mental health since they don’t believe in it being important. The perfectionism of Cythnia was caused mainly by being the first to reach college in her family, which led her to many issues with distress from outside of her home and inside of her home.
As previously stated, many first-generation students face many of the same issues whether it comes to pressure or trying to achieve perfection within college to be accepted and proud of their family. One of many first-generation students Zuher Ibrahim describes her experience and how being a first-generation student would feel like a double life. Zuher Ibrahim explains how “While some may say “no pressure” when it comes to grades and coursework, that’s simply not true. There will always be pressure.” (Zuher Ibrahim, 2020). Zuher explains how the pressure just piles up even when people are saying there is no pressure there will always be pressure when being the first to attend college. Zuher explains that she was pressured to do the best she could and to try to bring the best grades home, even when she did, she would describe her parent's expression as "It's what they expected” (Zuher Ibrahim, 2020). Zuher would explain further that when it came to mental health her parents didn’t comprehend the idea of it and didn’t accept that it should be a crucial role in life. She further explains how it feels like a double life with many people’s stories being “we’re trying to do well in school, maintain leadership positions, work a part-time job (or several jobs), and support the family … it just never feels like enough” (Zuher Ibrahim, 2020). Zuher mentiones how these stories of working and maintaining good grades are a regular basis of being a first-generation student. Immediately afterwards she mentions how if both of your parents are immigrants to consider the amount of work they had to do to come abroad and to learn a new social culture with a new language. These factors gave Zuher many reasons why she had issues with pressure to be successful, but they were one of the many reasons that helped her keep her motivation and drive to continue.
Being a first-generation student comes with many challenges and privileges such as motivation and stress to be better and to work harder than the regular student. The opportunity of being a first-generation student is difficult and in Jenna Douglas experience she dealt with more responsibilities than most other students would have. Jenna begins to explain how her father was a skilled electrician and didn’t know anything about the sphere of higher education and the value of a college degree. Jenna states that “Due to their lack of personal experience with postsecondary education, parents of first-generation college students often lack awareness of the social and economic benefits of college attendance... If I wanted to attend college, I had to educate myself about schools, majors, financial aid, and scholarships” (Jenna Douglas, 2019). The college process of entering and figuring out everything to financial aid to scholarships are every student's concern but having a parent not know or acknowledge the process makes it more difficult to deal with college. Jenna would further explain that when she was at Georgetown University, she would see other students talk with their parents about advice or simply vent to. She stated that “Being a student at Georgetown presented me with some of my most isolating and stressful days and often left me dubious about my decision to transfer to the university and my ability to continue matriculating.” (Jenna Douglas, 2019). Jenna Douglas would continue to speak about the situation saying she felt like giving up many times, but she couldn’t since she wanted to pursue this education for herself and for her family. In many situations the pressure to succssed puts much strain on first-generation students' mental health because the thought of failing isn’t something that is possible knowing what their families background have experienced.
Throughout many of these personal stories they all have the pressure of being perfect and the feeling of being distant and isolated from their families to achieve this perfection for their families. Each personal story has different factors, but all stories have some sort of restriction with someone seeking advice with personal family member or a disadvantage of being less prepared compared to a student who has one or more parents' complete college. In many cases pressure was talked about the most in these stories explaining that with the pressure of being a first-generation student it leaves a heavy burden on the person’s mental health leading them to more problems than continuing college students. Concluding with all these personal experiences, first-generation students have it much more difficult than continuing college students due to their background disadvantage in knowledge, financial viability and lastly pressure to succeed. Work Cited
Stephens, Nicole M., et al. “Closing the Social-Class Achievement Gap: A Difference-Education Intervention Improves First-Generation Students’ Academic Performance and All Students’ College Transition.” Psychological Science, vol. 25, no. 4, 2014, pp. 943–53. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24543535.
NUNN, LISA M. “First-Generation College Students.” Education and Society: An Introduction to Key Issues in the Sociology of Education, edited by Thurston Domina et al., 1st ed., University of California Press, 2019, pp. 110–28. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvpb3wn0.12.
Gomez, Cynthia. “Mental Health: Striving for Progress, Not Perfection.” First-Gen Stories | Close the Gap Blog, 9 Dec. 2021, blog.closethegapfoundation.org/mental-health-progress-not-perfection/gclid=Cj0KCQjwmN2iBhCrARIsAG_G2i5CJrYVBWd6yjJxgmLUJ8ITI5ORz4Gz7oMIK_BoMdTgVt7eRzabJhUaArXxEALw_wcB.
Ibrahim Zuher. “A Double Life: The Thoughts of a First-Generation College Student.” Active Minds, 8 June 2020, www.activeminds.org/blog/a-double-life-the-thoughts-of-a-first-generation-college-student/.
Jenna Douglas “The Challenges and Privileges of Being a First-Generation College Student.” All4Ed, 11 Aug. 2021, all4ed.org/blog/the-challenges-and-privileges-of-being-a-first-generation-college-student/.