>> Welcome to the humanizED podcast with Michelle Pacansky-Brock. This podcast is brought to you by Teaching and Learning Innovations at California State University, Channel Islands, and is shared with a Creative Commons attribution, non commercial license.

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>> Throughout life, we all experience many firsts. Take a moment to remember the first time you drove a car, the first time you spoke in front of a large group of people or held a newborn baby or played a musical instrument. First times are special. They are entangled in many emotions. Excitement. Anticipation. And some nerves too. But being first is an entirely different scenario. When a new semester begins, faculty look out to see faces of new students. Some of these students are on campus for the first time, making that first day of class even more special. But not all of those first time students are alike. Some have gone against the odds to become first generation college students. First generation students are the first in their family to attend college. On their first day they're navigating a culture that is not only new to them, but also new to everyone in their family. The extra burden they bear is an invisible one, but it matters. First gen students have been studied quite a bit. We know that they're more likely to be from low income households, members of racial or ethnic minority groups, female, attend a community college, take classes part time, and may feel marginalized by academic culture. But that's not all. Low income first generation students are nearly four times more likely to leave college after the first year than students without these two risk factors. These obstacles contribute to lower degree completion rates. After 6 years we know that only 11% of low income first generation college students earn a Bachelor's degree compared to 55% of their peers outside of these high risk groups. If you attended college and were not a first gen student, you likely were born in to certain privileges that were the result of someone in your family who was a first gen learner. For me that person is my dad, Jake Pacansky. I was raised in San Jose, California in a middle class family. I had a comfortable home and felt safe. I don't remember it ever being a question about whether or not I would go to college. It was just something I knew that I would do after high school. And that's one reason why engaging first generation students in college is so critical. National data shows that 82% of non first generation students enroll in college after high school compared to 54% of students whose parents completed high school, but did not attend college. Having a college degree in our society carries a lot of cultural capital. Those who have terminal degrees often include three letters after their name to denote this high achievement. But how often do we inquire about the journey behind those letters? With the support of my mom, my dad earned his PhD at Iowa State in 1971 just a few months after I was born. But that is not where his journey began. I asked my dad to spend some time with me and share a little bit about his journey which started in New Jersey in 1938 when he was born in to a large poor family parented by two immigrants from Slovakia.

>> I was born in a family that had, including me, 15 children, 8 sons, 7 daughters. This was right before World War II, right after the Depression. So there wasn't much money around. Plus having such a large family it was very, you know -- very difficult. So as I grew up I had to try to take care of myself. When I was born my mother was over 40. At that time we had 14 in the family. A younger brother was yet to come. So there wasn't much time for my mom to put in to me or anyone. She was very busy cooking, very busy cleaning, very busy doing tons of laundry. And it was a very tough life on her. When I was about 11 or 12, something like that, my mom died of cancer. And, you know, that was a blow to the whole family. Afterwards, my father had some problems and so the rest of us were left to fend for our own. So that meant that the minimal needs that you have from clothes, food, that was what you worked for.

>> My dad ended up being the first son in his family to graduate high school. Given that, I wanted to understand what got him to make the leap to go to college.

>> I always had an interest in books. I always wanted to know. If I have to say, something that has kept me going was, you know, my thirst for wanting to know. There wasn't any other way I could phrase that. You want to know how a car works. You want to know, you know, why the sun shines. You want to know, you know, why the sky is blue. And so that's kind of -- That kind of drove me.

>> That answer didn't surprise me one bit. I grew up in a house with what I thought was millions of books. And to this day it's rare for me to find my dad without a book in his hand, and that book is usually about quantum theory. [Chuckle] So I still wanted to know more. I wanted to understand how he actually got to college.

>> Okay. So after I got out of high school I wanted to be an airplane mechanic. I worked from 9 at night until 7 in the morning. In the meantime I'm trying to make up some deficiencies from high school by going to a preparatory school and it was exhausting. You know, it got very, very bad. I was working 10 hours at night on very heavy equipment, and then trying to go to school during the day and, you know, trying to study. It was very hard. The problem about living in New Jersey at that time was there weren't any two year colleges. You had your four year colleges, universities. They were very expensive which put me out of the market. And you couldn't get in. You needed very, very high grades to get in because of the waiting list.

>> Here's the part of my dad's story that I find fascinating. It's 1959 in New Jersey and here's what happens.

>> Well, at my local high school we had a gym teacher who knew a basketball coach at a junior college in California and he informed us that if we could go to California the junior colleges were free.

>> Yep. He said free. 1960 was the year that California's master plan for higher education was unveiled. Designed to ensure affordable public higher education and prepare for the huge Baby Boomer generation, the program laid the foundation for three systems that still thrive in California today: The University of California or UC system, the California State University system or CSU, and the California Community College system. Just like today, community colleges accepted the top 100% of students and then they were free.

>> A friend of mine went for one year, then wrote me about it. Until one day I had a few dollars in my pocket and that led me to literally pack up a couple suitcases and I went to California. That was perhaps the turning point of my life.

>> A passion to know, a tip from a gym coach, and a free ticket to community college, those were the key factors that engaged my dad in college. Today, California's public system of higher education continues to play a critical role in the lives of first generation students. Community colleges in California are no longer free today, but they're still quite a bargain at just $46 a unit. Many first generation college students in California begin their journey at community colleges and they also comprise 1/3 of the nearly 1/2 million students enrolled in the CSU system. I wanted to know more about the experiences of these students today so I spoke with two students, Ariana Borroto and Demetri Williams.

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Ariana is an 18 year old community college student enrolled at Sierra College in Rocklin, California. She grew up in New Jersey. Her dad immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba. Her mom was born in New York shortly after Ariana's grandparents moved from Cuba. When she was young, Ariana says her family was wealthy, but when she was eight years old her mom died and that dramatically changed her family's economic situation. The similarities between Ariana's story and my dad's really took me by surprise. I wanted to understand the factors behind her move from New Jersey where she grew up to a community college in California.

>> I had applied to like top universities in -- on the east coast, mostly in New York City, and I got in to them with even some scholarship money, but it was just way too expensive. Like $50,000. So I decided I could not do that to myself and put myself in that kind of debt for just general ed courses that wouldn't be shown on my transcript anyway. So I said, "Okay. Just swallow the pride a little bit and decide to go to community college." And I attended a private Catholic high school in New Jersey so a lot of the students were going to ivy league schools, schools in the area that their siblings had gone to. So it was a little bit different, but instead of going to community college with a bunch of the students who hadn't really decided to take the ivy league route and see them all over again, I said, "Let me reach out to family, see where I can move, see what I can do." So I called my aunt who had moved to Sacramento and she invited me to live with her and I told her, "Do you know of any community colleges in the area?" And she's like, "I think I heard of Sierra College." So I was like, "Okay." So I literally just applied. A few weeks later I got a call that said I got accepted and in that moment basically I decided -- And then fast forward two months. I took my 2005 Hyundai Elantra, drove it across the country, and have been here ever since.

>> Listening to Ariana describe her decision to swallow her pride and go to a community college was a sharp contrast to my dad's story. Over the decades the pressure to get admitted to a four year university after high school has really intensified for students and for parents of high school students. I was interested in hearing more from Ariana about how this felt for her.

>> It was just a little awkward just because a lot of people, "Oh, I got in to Villanova, University of Delaware, Penn State." "I'm going to just phenomenal schools." And I was obviously so happy for everyone, but I felt like I was kind of missing out on the whole college experience, but I'm so so very happy I did it. Moving out here not knowing anyone has just forced me to kind of come in to my own person, not have any influences of any person I grew up with or even the area to refer back to. It just gets very comfortable in your routine and then I don't know. I was just tested. Just figure out who you are. And I feel I've matured a lot. I've had to deal with a lot of things away from my parents and kind of support network back east.

>> As I listened to Ariana's story I started to wonder if we're beginning a new era in higher education, one in which students in search of the college experience are moving away to a community college and then transferring to a four year university which is Ariana's plan. While Ariana is not sure what her career goal is right now, she has quite an inspirational outlook on life.

>> I kind of just want to be happy, make other people happy, and just live life to the fullest. There's a whole world. Like I'm so lucky and I feel like I just have a lot to share and experience and I think since I was born able to do this I should. It's only right.

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>> I also spoke with Demetri Williams, a 19 year old African American student who attends Sierra College where he plays football. Demetri aspires to transfer to a four year university to earn his undergraduate degree and continue his football career. Like Ariana and my dad, Demetri's upbringing was wrought with financial struggles and a single parent household. When Dmitri was eight years old his father left his mother and her four children. As the oldest child, Demetri took on many extra family responsibilities in the years that followed. In our conversation Demetri said his mother is a big inspiration to him. So I asked him to tell me a little bit more about her.

>> She's from L.A., born and raised. She's an only child. Also a child of a broken home, you know. Father left. I don't know the whole narrative behind that. She moved to Sacramento. She attended some courses in college. I forget which school. It didn't work out for her. She dropped out. She tells me almost every day how she regrets that. Yeah. So that also might be kind of a reason why she pushes education with me.

>> Research shows that the college application process can be a sticking point for first generation students. Here's what Demetri had to say about this.

>> Yeah. It was a little bit of a barrier as far as, you know, deadlines go, how to complete the forms correctly, you know. That was a little bit of a challenge. I did have to go to friends. I did have to go to extended family, you know, uncles, aunts, cousins, that sort of thing, for that help. Also it is that aspect alone -- It grew me up a little bit, actually, to be honest with you. It showed me I can't do everything by myself basically.

>> Demetri also shared the story with me about how he ended up at community college. Apparently it wasn't his plan.

>> Well, originally coming out of high school, I graduated in 2015, I was planning on attending and playing for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. But those plans had fallen through, mainly because aid and the offers that I was planning on receiving got pulled. So I had to pay out of pocket and that was too expensive. So my friends had told me about Sierra so I said, "Might as well."

>> At the end of our conversation I asked Demetri, if he had one wish for his college experiences, what would it be? And his answer surprised me.

>> Honestly? Start it all over again. But this time instead of the junior college route I'd want to go the four year route. Back in high school there was a lot of speculation that junior college was just more high school. Though I've come to know that that's not the case, I still do talk to my friends that are off to a four year college. There's more of a stigma there more than anything that like I did everything I needed to do to get here. There's something that you must have missed. You know what I mean? That's not the case. That's, you know, kind of what's -- For lack of a better word, it's the vibe that I get when I talk to those people. You know what I mean?

>> As I reflect on my dad's story from the 1960s and compare it with the stories from today shared by Ariana and Demetri, a couple of things stand out to me. All three came from families that struggled financially as a result of a single parent household. And all three started their college journeys at a community college. But one thing is strikingly different to me. Ariana and Demetri both spoke about the stigma they felt upon making the decision to go to a community college. My dad, on the other hand, described it as the turning point in his life. The other major difference, of course, is the soaring cost of higher education today. Ensuring financial aid for low income and first generation students is key to improving the upward mobility of future generations of Americans because when a first generation college student graduates every generation that follows does too.

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>> The intro and outro music of this episode is by Michael Berman. The musical scores for this episode are by Kevin MacLeod in incompetech.com. That's I-N-C-O-M-P-E-T-E-C-H.com. His music, "Angel Share," "Bittersweet," and "Concentration" are all under the Creative Commons by attribution 3.0 license. Additional information about the HumanizED podcast and resources for this episode are available at humanizED, spelled H-U-M-A-N-I-Z-E-D.csuci.edu. Join the conversation with hashtag humanizED CI.(#humanizEDci)