Support For First-Generation College Students
By Hannah Martin
Walking into campus feeling lost and not sure what to do next, the student enters the office of their academic adviser. The adviser tells them to sit down and welcomes them to the university, taking the time to explain all the questions they had, helping them feel more comfortable in their new home.
This is first-generation college student [a person who is the first in their family to receive a college degree] Sydney Stinson, a fourth year in agricultural education.
First-generation students across campus are speaking out about the support they received from their professors and administrator.
Stinson said that it was clear that her parents didn’t understand the demands of college and the time it takes to complete assignments. She mentioned that her family wants her to be home and spend more time with them, she believes is due to their lack of college experience.
Stinson’s adviser, Susie Whittington, professor and director of Second-year Transformational Experience, provided a great deal of support and understanding for Stinson.
Whittington was able to provide this support, because she too is a first-generation college student. Whittington attended the university and graduated in 1982 with her bachelor’s degree in agricultural education and then went on the receive her Ph.D. in 1988 and 1991 in agricultural education.
However, the term first-generation has not always been a term used across college campuses Whittington said.
For Whittington she said while they didn’t have the label, first-generation college student, all she did know was that she was a rural kid, from a small town, coming to college with an expectation that she was coming to get it done.
“The university is now paying attention to that category of students [first-generation] and that there is a national resource agenda currently for studying that population of students and what unique variables exist for supporting and assisting first-gen students,” Whittington said she appreciates and respects this agenda.
The support from faculty and staff have been milestones in some students experience. From professors to advisers to even the president of the university Michael V. Drake.
Samuel Ayirookuzhiyil, a fourth year in consumer and family financial services, said that after his first semester when he was feeling lost, Drake came to talk to a group of students at Independence Hall and said that college was a great opportunity to move up in the world.
“It drilled me to do better in school and take it more seriously, it was an opportunity to help my family,” Ayirookuzhiyil said, regarding Drake’s message that really stuck with him.
Getting support is key to the success of any first-generation college student, and for some students that support really sticks with them as they peruse their degrees.
