Welcome to First Gen 411!

Hi there! I am so excited to finally be publishing my blog. This has been a project that I have considered for a little while now, and I am finally doing it. I figured that a good first post would be to introduce myself and this blog, so that you all know who I am and why I am doing this.

For those who do not know me, my name is Alyssa. I am a first-generation college student who attends the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I graduated in May 2021 with a Bachelor's degree in history and I am now attending the same university to get my Master's degree, also in history. I am hoping to pursue a PhD with the goal of becoming a college professor.

You could say that this blog is the result of my experiences over the last five years. I remember that in high school, when it came time for my senior class to start searching for and applying to colleges, I felt completely lost. I felt like all of my friends, whose parents or other family members had gone to college, knew exactly what to do and how to do it. I, on the other hand, did not. At the time, nobody in my family had gone to college right out of high school. The closest thing I had was my aunt, who had retired from the military and gone back to college, but that wasn't the same. That's not to discredit my aunt, she was definitely a big help to me and the reason I ended up actually going to college, but it was still different. She didn't have the "typical" college freshman experience so she could only help me so much. And I have always wondered how much easier my life could have been if I had had a parent or older sibling to tell me exactly what to do.

I figured it out, though, and flash forward to about a month ago when I, a first-generation graduate student who is struggling just as much as I was five years ago, met with a professor that I had in undergrad who has been a big motivator for me continuing my higher education journey. During our meeting, she mentioned that I should start a blog. I didn't really take the suggestion seriously at first, but her reasoning was because I always talk about the difficulties of being first gen and how much it has impacted my college experience. And now, I have younger siblings and cousins who are approaching college age and have already started reaching out to me for advice. And I love it! Ever since this journey started for me, I have been excited about being able to help my younger family members through their journeys and making their experiences much easier than mine was. In the days following that meeting, I kept coming back to her suggestion and wondering if I should actually do it. Would anyone even read a blog? Would it actually help anyone? After a lot of thinking, the answer is: I don't know.

So, that brings us to today. I finally decided that, you know what, I don't know and it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, whether anyone actually reads this blog or whether it actually helps anyone, it's at least worth a try right? I have learned so much from my experience as a first gen that I believe it's worth sharing, regardless of if anyone reads it or not. It still feels good to put it out there, to write everything down in one place so that I can look back on it and see how far I have come. And hey, if someone else finds it useful too, then it was all worth it.

So, I would like to invite you to follow along with me as I attempt this new endeavor. I don't know where it will take me, but for now I am excited. I don't want to hold myself to a super strict schedule (first gen graduate student and all, remember?), but I do want to post fairly regularly. I plan to focus each of my posts on a different aspect of the college search, application, selection, and adjustment process. I will probably go chronologically, so I will begin with topics such as how to find colleges to apply to and how to pay for college, then move on to topics like how to get involved on campus. And I know what you're thinking: there's only so many topics you can cover! That's true, to an extent. I will try my best to cover everything I can think of and everything that others mention to me. I will probably also occasionally post about my current life as a graduate student, because I need to vent somewhere. Considering that my current life plan keeps me in school for at least the next six years, there is no shortage of material! I hope that you enjoy.