2008 Woodie Awards
Viewpoint - First-time students should find ways to make college beneficial
By Will Underhill
Issue date: 4/4/08 Section: Opinion
Originally published: 4/3/08 at 10:14 AM CSTLast update: 4/3/08 at 5:08 PM CST
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I am a first-generation college student. Most of my family did not graduate from high school, so I exceeded my family's expectations by receiving a high school diploma. That said, no one in my family was able to offer advice or guidance on how to handle college life. My parents also made no financial preparations for me to attend college, so to be here, I work full time to pay tuition and rent. For whatever reason, I was not eligible for financial aid.
My situation mirrors that of many students on this campus. Community colleges are magnets for first-generation college students because they are affordable and close to home.
Students in similar circumstances know the hardest part of academia is managing priorities. Life becomes an endurance test between studying, family responsibilities and getting to class and work on time with only four hours of sleep at night.
This life resembles a triathlon more than anything else; and as any athlete or coach will say, one mistake can cost a person everything. It is a constant struggle to keep afloat and not drown when it is so easy to sink to the bottom.
To keep my head above water, I've had to make radical changes in my lifestyle. I live without television and have cut all other distractions out of my life. I try to stay on a rigorous weekly schedule that allots me one hour of down time a day and six hours a week with my family.
The hardest part of this lifestyle change was dealing with my friends. None of my friends from high school went on to college. Most of them are unemployed, and all of them still live with their parents. I would still go out with them on the weekends, but they were not helping me achieve the goals I set for my future.
The sociologist study "Mimicry and Me: The Impact of Mimicry on Self-construal," authored by Claire Ashton-James, Rick B. van Baaren, Tanya L. Chartrand, Jean Decety and Johan Karremans, published in the August 2007 issue of Social Cognition investigates how mimicry affects an individual's behavior to other people in general. Mimicry heightens an individual's perception of interpersonal closeness with others. Mimicry has also been proved to affect the ways individuals think and behave.
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