I was the first person in my immediate family to graduate from a four-year university. My father dropped out of community college after attending a single semester, and I often remember him telling me how hard classes were. My mother attended no college and no university. I received no private tutoring, and the most my parents could do with regards to helping me apply for university was to help me fill out the FAFSA application by providing their tax information. My high school of over 2,000 students had one college counselor to serve the hundreds of juniors and seniors applying to college and university. She was wonderful, but overwhelmed. I took the SAT without having opened a single SAT preparation book or having taken a single SAT class.
As an undergraduate, I applied to the University of Florida, the University of Virginia, and New York University. I gained admission to New York University and the University of Florida. The dean at New York University called me to let me know that I made it into the university by the strength of my college admissions essay alone. I gained admission to the University of Florida, but I was required to attend the summer session.
I wanted to be a writer. It was my passion. I took AP classes in high school; the teachers were sometimes excellent and sometimes terrible. One AP English teacher in high school allowed us to spend the entire period playing the board game Cranium, while my AP Psychology teacher drilled us on concepts so extensively that she was known throughout the state of Florida for having the students with the highest AP Psychology scores. When it came to my high school education, it was hit and miss.
My parents wouldn’t take out loans to send me to New York University. While they qualified for parental loans, they weren’t sure this was the best investment and they were scared. After all, my father had dropped out of community college, and my parents had no first-hand experience of university success within the family or a sense of what university success could mean for their child. Later, they’d take out loans to send my brother to a for-profit school in Florida, but they did so only because they saw that their firstborn child could succeed and even thrive in college.
First-generation college and university students face immense challenges. They often don’t have tutors. They don’t have the same community support of their wealthier peers and may not have the same network. Their parents might actively discourage them from taking out loans to go to college or university because of a fear of debt (I know my parents were frightened for me). My mother actively discouraged me from attending college, encouraging me instead to find a husband and make babies. First-generation college students often don’t have parents to help them navigate the application process. I know I didn’t.
I studied English and Art History at the University of Florida. Using study skills I developed myself and with the help of kind professor mentors, I graduated from the University of Florida with virtually straight As. My only B was in a math class. In college I was fortunate enough to spend a summer abroad (thanks to my boyfriend’s dad paying for our flights and my boyfriend’s mom paying for our train tickets), but I had very little money and my boyfriend and I mostly slept in train stations and parks, making scraps from the hostel breakfasts somehow last all day. (There was one night in England where we were so scared and tired, we literally chained ourselves to a tree.)
In university, I often didn’t understand that my peers had often been better supported, and so I internalized my failure when I didn’t know the vocabulary they knew, or hadn’t done the reading they’d done in high school. In time, I came to understand how privilege and money shapes educational achievement, but for years I blamed myself. When I served as a teacher at an East Harlem college preparatory program years later, I often told my students my stories to help them understand that their struggles were not due to inferior intelligence, but due to lack of preparation.
After Florida, I attended Columbia University to receive my MFA in poetry. Though I received a fellowship, the fellowship was nowhere near enough money to pay for school. I decided to invest in my education and took out loans, which I am still paying to this day. Being a first generation college student also had disadvantages at Columbia University. At Columbia, I never asked my professors for help, never once told them I was scared about my student loans, scared for my future. Perhaps this comes from growing up in a neighborhood where shows of weaknesses got you in trouble, but at Columbia, I put on a tough face, thinking it served me, when it didn’t. Now I tell my students that they need to ask for help; that it is required; that they need to use the resources their school offers them to the fullest. I graduated from Columbia feeling completely unmoored, with little sense of what I would do next, and no guidance on what my next steps should be.
Later, my ex-husband and I moved to Canada (he was attending a Ph.D. program there and I followed as a spouse), where I worked as a private tutor. Because of my background, I knew how to teach myself, how to motivate myself, and how to study independently, skills which are essential to success in college and life. As a tutor I found myself teaching many students who were dependent on others to motivate them; who relied on me academically in a way I never relied on anyone. Occasionally, I’d encounter a self-motivated student, but these were the exceptions, not the norm. It seemed like the more advantages a student had, the less likely he or she was to be self-motivated. First-generation college students often have the advantage of self-reliance.
Many of the students whose families paid for their education in full, or who were better supported, now have published books, have gone on to win awards, went on to pursue Ph.Ds, or have tenure track jobs. We all graduated during the 2008 financial crisis. I spent a good decade out of Columbia working to pay my bills, drowning in student loan debt, failing, and trying to gain the stability I would need to be able to write a book I could be proud of. There was a period of time, several years after the 2008 economic crash where I was homeless and living out of my car. Students with stronger safety nets didn’t have this experience.
And yet, my writing saved me then and it saves me now. I also know that my education was my safety net. When I was homeless and living in my car, I was able to apply for remote writing jobs, and these jobs sustained me and ultimately got me out of the financial hole. My writing has given me immense freedom, including the freedom to live anywhere in the world I want. These days I live as simple a life as possible in Hawai’i. Food is incredibly expensive so my boyfriend and I buy the “last day” vegetables at the farmer’s market. We shop at the thrift store for the things we need.
I know I have privileges few people have, and have been given opportunities in my life for which I am grateful. But none of it was given to me. I worked my ass off to be here. For first-generation college students thinking about the next step, I say the road is hard, but not impossible.
About the Writer
Janice Greenwood is a writer, surfer, and poet. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry and creative writing from Columbia University.