The Pressure to Succeed for a First Generation Child

As graduation gets closer, I’ve started to dread one question: “What are you doing after you graduate?” 

It sounds harmless, almost celebratory, but for me, it lands like an evaluation. I’m about to graduate, and I don’t have a job lined up. No perfectly mapped out five-year plan. I don’t have a clean, impressive answer that makes people nod in approval. 

What I have is uncertainty, and for someone who grew up feeling like success was the bare minimum, uncertainty feels a lot like failure. 

There’s a specific type of pressure that comes with being a first-generation child. It’s never explicitly said, but always understood. 

You are supposed to do well, not just okay. You are supposed to make the most out of every opportunity, maximize every resource, and turn every sacrifice that came before you into a measurable success. The expectation isn’t average; it’s excellence, and excellence isn’t framed as optional; it is framed as gratitude. 

Somewhere along the way, success becomes the only acceptable outcome. And not just success, but a specific kind of success, stable, prestigious, obvious. 

There is little room in that framework for exploration or pauses. There is no clear definition of “enough”—the bar keeps rising. A degree becomes the minimum, and an internship becomes the standard. A job offer becomes just the beginning of the next comparison. It is exhausting to chase a finish line that keeps moving.

The hardest part is the quiet resentment that can build in that environment. Sometimes you resent the expectations themselves, the weight of them, the way they make everything feel urgent and high-stakes. 

Other times, you resent yourself for not meeting them flawlessly. You feel guilty for feeling tired. You feel ashamed for feeling unsure. You question your ambition, your discipline, your worth. 

To be defined as “successful” can start to feel like a choice between two resentments: either you push forward and suppress the parts of yourself that feel overwhelmed, or you slow down and risk disappointing the standards you’ve internalized.

Everyone around me says it’s totally fine to not have everything figured out. “You’re still young.” “Careers aren’t linear.” “Something will work out.” 

And I believe them. I know the job market is unpredictable and timelines differ. I know that one delayed offer does not define a lifetime. 

But acknowledging something logically and feeling it emotionally are two different things. The reassurance doesn’t automatically quiet the voice in my head that equates uncertainty with inadequacy.

I’m still learning how to live in that gap—the space between what is reasonable and acceptable. I’m still learning how to sit without having a polished answer. I’m still learning that being in progress is not the same as falling behind. 

I just wish that lesson came more easily. I wish I could detach my self-worth from the speed of my success. For now, all I can do is admit that I don’t have everything lined up and try to believe that this in-between stage is not a reflection of failure but simply part of becoming.

• family
• first-gen
• immigrant
• mental health
• student