Celebrating Being a First Generation College Student

November 8th was National First-Generation day, where colleges and universities were encouraged to celebrate first-generation students, faculty, and staff. Seeing these celebratory posts from multiple universities these past few days made me realize that I hardly ever embrace this label onto myself and celebrate it. I’m not trying to avoid it or distance myself from it, but more so it’s just… hard.

We’re suddenly in a whole other world of education where everyone is focused on classes, internships, building connections, working towards grad school, etc. and continuing generation students arrive knowing this. Whereas being first-gen means proactively learning along the way, wondering and worrying about grad school, working a job if you’re a working-class student, maybe facing pressure and guilt from family, along with classes… and suddenly there’s no room to breathe, much less celebrate. I’m not sure how many other first-gen students I can speak for when I say that all these feelings of stress, worry, and being lost easily overshadow any celebratory feelings that revolve around being first-gen.

Those celebratory moments usually only come in when there’s an achievement made, but what about the moments where those struggles and stress are at their peak? There’s a famous line that’s heard quite a bit in moments of rough grades and when everything feels like it’s in the dumps, which is: just keep working hard, this is your future. It’s supposed to be a motivator to keep trudging along, but boy does it just add to the pressure factor. So lately, I’ve found myself thinking about the past rather than the future in these moments. More specifically, how the heck I managed to get here and be more than halfway done already. If anything, we’ll find ourselves looking back on these tough moments in the future, so why not celebrate during them too?

Celebrate your story on how you got here, but also don’t be afraid to recognize the struggles. While the imposter syndrome is very real, it’s also super easy to compare ourselves to our peers who aren’t first-gen and fail to recognize that we might actually need additional resources to get where they’re at. Maybe celebrating the struggles we face isn’t the way to go about it, but celebrating the fact that we got here and now get the chance to face and overcome them should be a thing. You know you’ll make it, and you know future you will look back and celebrate it, so celebrate it now.

I’m a first-generation, Mexican-American, college student from a low-income household who had no idea what college was until my eighth grade English teacher had me step out of class with her to tell me she knew I could make it to college with the extra resources the AVID program provided, and now I’m here. That’s the story I remind myself of whenever I feel like I’m behind the rest of my peers and I’m slowly catching up, or if there’s a never-ending feeling to exams and unwanted results.

Take a moment to breathe, and celebrate your story.

• college
• first generation
• mexican american
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• uc davis