First-Generation Alienation

As the spring semester of my senior year begins, I reflect on my time at Harvard. In reflecting, I’ve often been drawn to my experiences and difficulties with being a first-generation student. Although low-income and first-generation are not necessarily synonymous, they overlap frequently, like in my case. I struggled immensely to make the transition to life at Harvard, as many others do, and this is something that needs to be addressed. I want to take the time to discuss some of the issues for first-gen students that I have felt and heard in my time on campus.

The most difficult thing that I had to come to terms with was getting help. Many first-gen/low-income students aren’t comfortable accessing resources that are available to them. In trying to prove that you belong alongside peers in Canada Goose jackets by showing that you’re “strong enough” to deal with problems on your own, you fall further behind. If you went to a less rigorous public school than your Exeter buddies, you may not be used to the heightened workload. If you are struggling with mental illness, you may be from a culture that has a stigma around seeking help and not want to reach out to campus services immediately. There are resources available to you, but getting to a point in which you feel comfortable reaching out to them often happens too late. By this time, you may have already failed a class or had a mental breakdown. Overall, shedding this “pride” and understanding that you have every right to use these resources and that you can’t deal with everything on your own is a long process that is common among many first-gen/low-income students.

You also are attending a university that is actively suppressing your people through investing in private prisons at a time in which our justice system systematically targets uneducated, low-income, and especially minority communities. Not only that, but when first-gen students make up essentially the same number of legacy students, 15 and 14 percent respectively, the supposed ideals of Harvard’s diversity and equal education are in question. Looking around and seeing so few people like you — so few people with shared experiences in your life — is difficult. Knowing that some of these people will go on to work at companies that will contribute to the further oppression of your friends and family is frustrating. As legacy admits graduate from Harvard to ball out on Wall Street in finance, I’m reminded of family members’ houses foreclosed on or cars repossessed during my life due to defaulted loans. If I sold out, I would have to go home knowing that I am doing nothing to help these people that I struggled alongside so much.

Going home is not exactly the break that you would hope it would be either. Since you attend Harvard, that’s your identity to many people. In well-educated communities you may still have the privilege of going home and not being called “Harvard” when you are trying to talk to some of your old friends. Being made to feel alien in one’s own home because of higher education can be lonely. Not that these other people have ill-intentions, but it’s simply what you are identified as now. This effect can be exaggerated when people are forced to take time off and return to their communities that have unintentionally isolated them and may not have adequate resources to address the problems they are facing. Someone returning to their million-dollar Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan is nowhere near equivalent to someone returning to the rural Midwest and having to explain why you aren’t at Harvard at the moment.

Now, after you graduate from Harvard, you essentially are different from those people, too. You now are afforded privileges that nobody else from your community receives, as you’ve graduated into an elite class of Ivy League alumni. This identity crisis is far too common for first-gen/low-income students. This doesn’t even address how race impacts this identity crisis when nearly half of white students at Harvard are legacies, athletes, or children of faculty and donors.

If Harvard had better support systems in place for first-generation students, many of these issues would not be as common. If CAMHS didn’t have absurdly long wait times to get an appointment and were easier to access, or if students trusted administrators to actually listen to their concerns and feelings, people could get help. Stronger institutional, mentor, and peer support networks for first-gen college students need to be implemented to supplement already existing organizations such as the Harvard College First Generation Student Union. At the present moment, too many first-gen students are struggling and are not getting the support they need.

Kevin R. English ’20, is a Psychology concentrator in Kirkland House.