When people hear the term “first-generation college student,” they often imagine someone whose parents never set foot in a university classroom. For me, the label has always felt a little more complicated.
My mom has two degrees. Her first is a Bachelor’s degree in architecture and a master’s in teaching Spanish, both of which were earned abroad. Education has always been a priority in our household, not an afterthought. I grew up hearing about her late nights studying, her passion for learning, and the doors education could open. And yet, when I stepped onto campus at Texas A&M University, I still felt like I was figuring everything out on my own.
In many ways, I exist in an in-between space. I’m not fully first-gen in the traditional sense, but I also don’t have a built-in roadmap for navigating college in the United States. My mom’s experiences, while inspiring, don’t always translate to the systems, expectations, and traditions that define college life here.
At Texas A&M, those traditions are everything.
From Ring Day to Midnight Yell, being an Aggie means more than just going to class. It’s about belonging to something bigger. But learning how to belong doesn’t come naturally when you didn’t grow up surrounded by people who understand what these milestones mean.
Take the Aggie Ring, for example. For many students, it’s a symbol they’ve been dreaming about for years. For me, it represents something deeper: a promise kept, a sacrifice honored, and a quiet pressure that I carry every day.
Because behind that ring is my family’s expectation of a deeply rooted and hopeful one. I am the one who is supposed to graduate. The one who is supposed to make it all “worth it.” The one who carries not just my own goals, but theirs too.
And that pressure can be heavy.
It shows up in the small moments: when I feel like I can’t fall behind, when taking a break feels like failure, or when I compare my journey to friends who seem to move through college with ease. It’s in the way I constantly remind myself that I don’t just represent myself, but I also represent my family’s dreams.
But over time, I’ve started to realize that this “in-between” identity is not a weakness but a strength.
It has made me more resilient, more intentional, and more aware of the opportunities in front of me. It has taught me how to advocate for myself, how to ask questions when I don’t have the answers, and how to create my own version of what college success looks like.
Being the daughter of an educated immigrant mother has given me a unique perspective. I’ve inherited her determination, but I’ve also had to carve my own path in a system that wasn’t built with our exact story in mind.
So maybe I don’t fit perfectly into the definition of “first-gen.” But I know what it feels like to carry expectations, to navigate unfamiliar spaces, and to build something new from the foundation my mom created.
And maybe that’s what being first-gen is really about.
It’s about honoring where you come from while learning how to belong where you are.