THE FILM

"No because the education system and not enough guidance from parents"

"No, no one in my family could really help me navigate through the expectations I should have for college."

"In being first gen I feel like I've had to do college with a blindfold on. I don’t know what I'm doing or what I'm looking for, but just sort of working it out with little knowledge of the resources i can access or what next steps will look like after college."

"I didn’t have that advice that many others had from their parents"

"One of the challenges in a predominantly white school is sometimes being the only person of color in a classroom. Sometimes you feel singled out. Especially when topics covered in class, such as race and class, don’t seem to affect my classmates as much as they affect me."

"I had to fill out all of my applications for university on my own considering my family had no idea what any of it meant. It was also hard finding food around the area that reminded me of my culture."

"My parents tell me 'we brought you to this country, now your job is to figure it out'. I have the way for my entire family but at the cost of being alone."

"There were no Caribbean FTIC or first generation clubs or support groups to guide through admissions or financial aid process."

 

"Being a 1st generation college student is difficult when you dont have much guidance from parents. You learn by making mistakes throughout college. A lot of other students seemed pretty confident going to school because they were prepared from the top notch privitazed schools they went to prior."
"I would say that not having someone to talk to about your struggles in college is hard, and carrying that emotional burden can be a lot for one person"

"Your upbringing has a lot to do with how you act and you don’t realize at first. When I was younger my mom would pack me rice and other cultural foods and kids would make fun of me. So I started asking my parents for lunchables and pbj sandwiches even though they don’t taste that good I wanted to fit it. There’s a lot of 'wanting to fit it' that happens when you’re a first gen American, you wanted to be acquainted with the culture but yet you don’t want to stray from your roots. So it’s difficult when you want to genuinely spend time with your family and your friends can’t understand why you won’t ditch them or sneak out of the house."

"Applying to colleges was tough because there was no one to guide me through the process. It was very frustrating trying keep my hopes up about getting accepted to a school like Syracuse because no one in my family had gone to college, much less attended a university like Syracuse. There was also a launguage barrier that prevented my family from completely understanding my college experience when it came to explaining credits and choosing a major or minor."