‘Being First Gen Is a Superpower’

During Suffolk’s recent First-Gen Week, the consensus was clear: The experience of being a first-generation college student is something that never quite leaves you—the sense that, as Marketing Professor Robert Smith put it, “you’ve entered someone else’s world through the back door, and you don’t want to be noticed or take up too much space.”

But as a chorus of first-gen students, alumni, and faculty also made clear, there are other things that never leave you—namely, the life lessons that first-gen students acquire as they earn their degrees. Getting knocked down, and getting back up. Learning how to juggle a full course load while working a part-time job—or two or three. Learning how to ask for help, and to self-advocate. Learning to listen to your own voice, and to trust it.

“Last night I looked around and realized I was the only first-gen student [in my grad program],” Olivia Lapolla, BA ’21, a high school history teacher now pursuing her MEd at Boston College, recounted to a room full of first-gen Suffolk undergrads at a panel discussion on “Persistence: The Prerequisite They Don’t Talk About.”

Lapolla told the students—many of whom were McNair Scholars, the federally funded TRIO program that helps prepare students to apply to, and succeed at, graduate school—that she could feel a familiar surge of imposter syndrome starting to wash over her.

But then she caught herself. “Being first gen is a superpower,” she told the students: “We’ve gotten to where we are without all the support that many other students have. It speaks to our strength, our resilience.”

Expanding access to higher ed

“Rooted in Resilience” was, in fact, the theme for First-Gen Week, five days of panel discussions, networking events, a keynote on Gen Z activism, and an induction ceremony for the national honor society for first-gen college students.

Currently, close to 40% of Suffolk undergrads are the first members of their family on track to graduate from a four-year college. Being “a first” can be a source of pride; it can also mean no one in your family can explain the intricacies of federal financial aid, degree requirements, and the “hidden curriculum” of higher education.

That’s where Suffolk’s Center for First-Generation & Educational Equity comes in. The center serves as a welcoming home base for first-gen students as well as a resource center that can help guide them to the range of academic, counseling, career, and financial support services available on campus.

Since 2007, the center has also been home to Suffolk’s TRIO programs. Founded during the Johnson Administration, TRIO was part of a federal effort to expand access to higher education, including Upward Bound college preparatory programs for both high school students and military veterans. Named in memory of Challenger astronaut Ronald McNair, the McNair Scholars Program prepares first-gen and low-income students to pursue doctoral study and other graduate programs.

Over the past 50 years, more than 6 million students have participated in TRIO programs, and its alumni include Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis, Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, and scores of other political leaders, college presidents, journalists, and NASA scientists. At Suffolk, more than 160 students have participated in the McNair Scholars Program.

Despite that track record—and historically broad bipartisan congressional support—this year TRIO was almost eliminated outright by the Trump administration. And while both Suffolk’s McNair Scholars and high school Upward Bound programs saw their funding renewed in the final hours, Suffolk’s Veterans Upward Bound did not—bringing to a close a program that has served 125 veterans every year for close to two decades.

‘College is a magical place’

Amid the political crosswinds, the Center for First-Generation & Educational Equity continues to offer a steady stream of events, including First Gen Week, as well as academic travel programs and opportunities for students to present their research at national conferences. Its efforts have helped win Suffolk recognition as a FirstGen Forward institution for five years running.

Yet seeking out that kind of support doesn’t always come naturally to first-gen students, Robert Smith noted during a panel discussion with first-gen faculty members. Raised by a single mother in New Orleans, Smith said he grew up surrounded by people who “prided themselves on being independent and self-reliant.” In college, he leaned hard into that identity, “determined to be the hardest-working person in the room”—to make up for the fact that so much about college life could feel unfamiliar and intimidating. “That kind of mentality will burn you out,” he added, “but it did get me through college and grad school.”

“I was navigating by trial and error,” admitted attorney Stephanie Jirard, an assistant professor of political science & legal studies. “I was offered special services, but I rejected them because I wanted to be like everyone else. That was not smart of me, because getting a college degree means you have more choices.”

Jirard had a powerful example close at hand: her father, a “super smart man” who worked as a custodian at Northeastern in era when higher ed was far less accessible to people of color. Jirard recalls how he went to work every day in a uniform that had his first name—and only his first name—spelled out on his chest pocket. “Because I saw he was smart but stuck,” she said, “I realized getting a degree was a ticket to freedom.”

Today, she added, “there’s even more institutional support available, and my advice is to take full advantage of it.”

For McNair Scholars, that includes reaching out to Suffolk’s McNair alumni, drawing on the network’s connections and collective wisdom. Now a master’s degree candidate in neuropsychology at Columbia University, Tatiana Vasquez, BS ’22, found her first biotech job thanks to another McNair alum. “Leaning on one another is what gets you through those moments of self-doubt,” added Arly Macario, BA ’18, who went on to earn her MEd from Harvard, where she now works as an admissions and financial aid officer.

For first-gen students, college can often feel like a voyage into the unknown. But it’s a journey worth taking, Smith said. “I’ve come to realize that college is a magical place. My friends who didn’t go to college got shot out of a cannon into adulthood. College delays that a little, and gives you more time to be introspective and to explore yourself. Going to college completely changed who I ended up becoming.”