first generation students

[Levon3]

Wow, I've really appreciated reading this thread too. I'm the first person in my extended family to attend college, and now I'm getting my Ph.D. Aside from the obvious hardships (my parents not knowing how to help me apply to and navigate college, so I ended up going to a local, lower-tier school for undergrad, and having to work 3 jobs while competing in athletics in order to pay for it all), they now are not supportive of my graduate school pursuit. They felt that the whole point of my BS was to make money, so when I told my mom I got into my Ph.D. program, her only response was, "how much is that going to cost?" Considering that she's never had to help pay for any of my schooling, I thought she might just congratulate me.

Then there is the added stress of having to spend so much time doing homework. Even when I'm home for the holidays, I spend much of my time working on papers. They've never had a job where they took work home, so they just completely do not understand it and I feel like a jerk for spending any of that time on my schoolwork. Family members don't ask how school is going; they ask when I'm going to find a husband and when I'm going to move back to my home state. 

I also feel like a major imposter. I look at some of my peers and think I'll never catch up to where they are in terms of familiarity with the field and academia more broadly. I keep working, but it does sometimes feel like starting a race a mile behind some of your peers. 

[virionoftomorrow]

<3 this thread. Not gonna lie, I feel intense jealousy when I hear some of my fellow interviewees talk about the European vacations they're gonna take before grad school and how great it was to study abroad, but I also feel proud that I was able to get to where I am from where I started. I just hope that the differences in experience between me and some of my peers won't make it impossible to connect with them. Graduate school is isolating enough as it is. 

[qt_dnvr]

Hi there. Full transparency, my mom went to our state college for a trendy program in business/retail management (when these were good jobs in the late 70s and early 80s) and my dad went to diesel and autobody school. My parents are largely supportive but I've had the experience of not being able to talk about what I'm reading/thinking/doing with my parents for many years now.

I think I struggled with jealousy for a long time, especially in art school and really liberal environments where people tended to try to obscure their privileged backgrounds. I came to expect this of wealthy people in my life and for a long time really distrusted people from privilege even as I got much, much better at reading it. Now I tutor privately and some of my students are extremely well off. I couldn't help for a long time to think if I had had a tutor for the SAT, where I would've ended up. Those "what if" situations are especially painful.

Honestly, I'm still less likely to relate to someone who has a lot of class privilege, but I try to remember that working people don't have a monopoly on suffering. It could very easily be the case that someone with wealth knows something of struggle with health or mental health, familial trauma, etc. Also, I try to turn it around some and remember how wonderfully resourceful I am and was raised to be as others may feel like they are helpless to fix things around the house or on the car, etc. We're all actually probably going to be just fine as grad students with limited resources, we know how to do more with less. I think its a good idea to seek out a peer or stay connected with others who are from a similar background, including maybe "Back home" people who didn't go to school/grad school as well as connections in school. 

Edited March 17, 2017 by qt_dnvr