Senior year of high school. I was so excited to begin my college application process, and was pretty ahead of most of my peers. I finished filing my FAFSA in October, as it com out October 1st of every year, and I had finished applying to all of my dream and safety schools at around early November. The thought and reality of going to college was extremely exciting to me, as I was involved in a TRiO Program specifically designed for fist generation college students. The support system was very strong, but my family was really unfamiliar with the intricate process, and the financial aspect was a strong hindering factor– and then my acceptance letters began to roll in.

I applied to around 9 colleges, and got accepted into 7, which felt good as the offers and scholarships came in. My sister, who is also a freshman in college, had already accepted and committed to her school, and my mom became worrisome with my process. My mom began to pressure me into committing without receiving any notification from my number one school, Spelman College. One day during the week, I received a phone call from a man named Tony, a man from admissions, who offered me a place at Main instead of Altoona, which was my original campus of choice. He stated he reviewed my application and wanted to waive my enrollment fee, and he believed I belonged more at Main than a starter campus. Tony from admissions gave me some time to think about my offer, as I was still awaiting a decision from Spelman College, and I finally did. On March 10th, 2019 at 10:39pm I finally accepted my admission offer to Penn State Main Campus, after carefully deciding the benefits of going to a PWI, having a great financial package, and going to a large school: Penn State became my obsession.

I moved into Penn State on August 23rd, and my life changed for the better. I began to flourish, as this was an institution that presented nothing but opportunities, but my life at home began to change. My mom started to struggle financially during my first semester, as it is hard putting two kids in college during 2019, and this began to worry me from over 250 miles away. My mom believes college is exactly like high school, a boarding school if you will, and did not understand the changes I was going through academically and socially, so whenever she commented on how tuition was effecting her, it kept pushing me further into a black void. This financial struggle began to motivate me to get a job and I also began applying to different scholarships, anything to help my mom with the tuition, but this also effected how my grades were this first semester. I believe that my first semester was a learning experience for not only me, but my family, as I’ve made mistakes I can learn from and also continue to help my mom help me get my bachelor’s degree. If you are a first generation college student, I want you to understand that you are putting yourself through this process for a reason. The support system is there, whether in the friends you make, the professors you have, or the advisors you seek. Find the support, and hold it within.

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