A March 2-3 Herald poll showed that first-generation students experience greater feelings of inadequacy than their peers in a variety of areas. Approximately 54 percent of first-generation students indicated they felt inadequate about their academic ability, compared to just 29 percent of other respondents. In addition, 45 percent of first-generation students reported feeling inadequate about their socioeconomic status, while only 12 percent of others indicated the same.
“These statistics are very legitimate,” said Isaiah Frisbie ’18, adding that he can relate to senses of incompetence and under-preparation.
“We do not know how to do college,” said Anthony Mei ’18. First-generation students need to learn how to appropriately study for midterms, manage time and adapt to campus life, he said. “We haven’t had prior experiences or any guidance.”
But the challenges of the first-generation experience entail more than just finding resources — they include overcoming an intimidation factor, Frisbie said. For example, many first-generation students encounter difficulty when choosing a concentration with little to no outside guidance.
“I do not know how to approach people for advice. I feel like I am bothering them,” said Heidy Mendez ’17.
As a first-year, Manuel Contreras ’16 was set on becoming an engineer after orientation — not because he liked it, but because a student “who looked like he knew what he was doing” told him to consider engineering. Contreras, a member of the Herald editorial page board, has since decided to pursue cognitive science.
Mendez, who is concentrating in health and human biology and plans to attend medical school after Brown, said these feelings of confusion and academic inadequacy are especially prevalent in science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses. “In high school I was used to getting top grades, but coming here I had to get used to trying to maintain average grades,” she said.
These challenges expand past the classroom for some first-generation students, creating a disconnect between home and the University. “I had a hard time bridging home life and school life all together,” Mendez said.
“I wish I could tell (my parents) more about the things that go on in my life, but I fear that I am going to give them a wrong idea of what I am doing here,” Mendez said. For example, when Mendez consistently called home in the evenings before going to taekwondo practice, her parents became worried that she was dedicating too much time to a club rather than schoolwork. “That wasn’t the case,” she added.
“I did not have the language to discuss college with my parents,” Contreras said, adding that his family first heard about Brown from doctors who worked at the hospital where his mother cleans.
Upon Contreras' acceptance to Brown, his family attended an admitted students reception at an alum's house in San Diego, California. "My dad joked that his first instinct would probably be, 'Can I do the landscaping here?’” he said.
Contreras said his parents have never been able to visit campus.
Due to the significant intersection between first-generation students and low-income students, first-generation students often feel pressure to pursue more traditional concentrations, several students said.
“If I told my family I was studying archeology, they would ask: ‘What does that mean? What job can you get with that?’” Mei said, adding that many first-generation students grapple with their families’ expectations of financial success.
Going to college for many first-generation students is more than an attempt to get a good education — it is about trying to improve their families’ economic standings, said Guadalupe Morales ’15.
Posts on Brown University Class Confessions — a Facebook page that highlights experiences of students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds — portray many of the challenges first-generation students face, said the founder of the page, Michael, whose name has been changed due to confidentiality concerns.
Michael said he created the page because many students do not feel comfortable discussing class-related concerns with their friends for fear that “they would be looked at differently.” Confessions on the page include: “I don’t think I’ve actually had a real conversation about my socioeconomic background with anyone outside of Facebook” and “I feel awkward when I say I couldn’t do something because ‘I had work’ and people assume I mean homework instead of my actual job.”
Common concerns on the page include complicated relationships with friends and family from home, lack of openness with friends at Brown and culture shocks.
Herald poll data corroborates this trend of difficulty connecting with other Brown students. Twenty-six percent of first-generation students indicated they feel inadequate about their social lives, marking a slight but statistically significant uptick from the 18 percent for students whose parents have attended college.
While most Brown students come from families with college experience, the number of students identifying as first-generation has climbed significantly in recent years, said Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73. This increase is a function of amplified outreach by admission officers and greater awareness of Brown as an option on the part of prospective first-generation students, Miller said. Admission officers decide which locations to visit and forge relationships with the hope of reaching out to students who have not been historically well-represented, he added.
There are resources available on campus that address the statistic gap, provide guidance and help build community for first-generation students, wrote Dean of the College Maud Mandel in an email to The Herald. “All first-gen first-years are contacted during the summer, with events during orientation and throughout the year designed specifically for them,” Mandel wrote.
From Feb. 27 to March 1, first-generation students from all over the Ivy League convened on College Hill for the first conference hosted by 1vyG, an organization started at Brown to provide a space for first-generation Ivy League students to connect.
Students and administrators who participated in the 1vyG conference “were able to create an action plan that we will be working on this upcoming year,” Mandel wrote. “We hope that the conference will be hosted by another university next year and plan to support our students’ attendance then,” she added.
But Morales said she did not feel like there was a place for first-generation students on campus prior to 1vyG’s inception. Though the University sends out many emails to first-generation students, few students attend the events because the University “does not make an effort to encourage a first-gen narrative,” she said. While it is comforting to graduate this year knowing that future students will have the 1vyG support network, the University “could make a larger effort to reach out to families,” she added.
“There are a lot of ironies that are imbedded in the Ivy League first-gen,” Contreras said. “My family was first and foremost happy that I was going to college — it did not matter which one.”
Clarification: A previous version of this article placed a quote by Manuel Contreras '16 out of context, implying that Contreras' father joked that his first instinct at Brown would be to do the landscaping. In fact, his joke was in reference to being at an alum's house in San Diego, California, for an admitted student event.
