Coconut or Mexican-American?

Growing up, school was not a major factor in my life. I come from a hard-working, middle-class military family. My mother, a Filipino immigrant, was a homemaker. My father was a 21-year United States Marine veteran. They were my first impression of what I thought my future would be. Being the youngest of four children, I was expected to fall in line behind my siblings when it came to education. I was never pushed to excel in my studies, so I did just enough to get by. As I watched friends escape the grasp of a military town and ascend to their respective colleges, I was left wondering what was next for me. I attended my local community college for a brief period of time. I treated college no different than high school. I

My parents used their troubled backgrounds as a way to push me towards academia. “Go to school so you can become a doctor and support us,” my family would pester. I thus considered school a boring platform that people were forced to endure through in order

When I graduated high school I had no idea what I wanted to do, all I knew is I was done with public school and could live my life as what I thought an adult was. My father and most of my family believed it was important for me to go to college, and get a kick start with my life. Though they weren’t wrong, I had no idea what I wanted to do and no discipline to do my studies to the full extent of my abilities.

For me, and probably many of my fellow students, higher education always seemed like a foregone conclusion: I never questioned if I was going to college, just where. No other options ever occurred to me. After working 12-hour shifts in a factory, the other options have become brutally clear. When I'm back at the university, skipping classes and turning in lazy re-writes seems like a cop-out after seeing what I would be doing without school. All the advice and public-service announcements about the value of an education that used to sound trite now ring true."(Braaksma,

After high school, many students make the decision on attending college based off of the things their parents/ teachers may have taught them when they were young. For example, many students further their education because throughout their lifetime they’re told they have to. In school we’re taught that in order for us to receive good jobs, and make a decent amount of money we have to have a college degree. Some are even taught that they must go beyond the undergrad and receive their masters, and doctorate degrees if they really want to be known as something in this world. While others go because it would make their parents proud, or to fulfill the legacy of being a first generation college student in their families. While this may be the case majority of the time, if you’re like me you go because

I come from a small military family where neither of my parents graduated high school. My parents divorced when I was two and left my mother as the sole provider for three children. Over the next few years I experienced severe personal trauma that would change the course of my life. At the age of 15 I dropped out of school, left home, and began working to support myself. The highest level of education I completed at that time was the eighth grade. In my early twenties I became a single mother of two girls. Because of the financial struggles that I endured due to not continuing my education I clearly emphasized the importance of getting a college education to both of my children. One particular discussion that I was having at the dinner table where I was enforcing the “requirement” of college for my children; my youngest daughter questioned me in the most innocent way, “ Mommy? Why is it so important for us to go to college when you didn’t even finish high school?” at that moment my life

“Kids who are the first in their families to brave the world of higher education come on campus with little academic know-how and are much more likely than their peers to drop out before graduation” (1). Many people believe that school isn’t for everyone, and whoever goes is privileged for doing so. Countless people in the world today do not attend college, and this is mainly due to an influence of those in their family. Perhaps they are unsupportive of higher education, their parents and family members may view their entry into college as a break in the family system rather than a continuation of their schooling and higher learning. Most of the first-generation students decide to apply to colleges, because they aspire to jobs which require degrees. However, unlike some students whose parents have earned a degree, they often seek out college to bring honor to their families, and to ensure they make a decent amount of money for their future.

Being the first generation in my family to be born in America, there is a great deal of pressure riding on education. My parents always encouraged me to take the higher level courses offered by Rockwall High School to prepare me well for my future. They always tell me stories about their childhood in India, and all the hardships they had to subdue to come to and start a life in America. By doing this, they provided my brother and

As a young child, I learned that education would be beneficial to not only myself but also all humankind. Growing up in a Northeast Florida housing project my father and mother did the best they could to raise nine children. My father worked seven days a week in the service industry as a waiter and bartender while my mother worked as a domestic employee in the homes of more affluent people in the south. My father had an eleventh grade education and my mother had not passed the tenth grade before she bore her first child. Neither parent completed high school but they had dreams of their children far exceeding their educational accomplishments. I was child eight of the nine and I knew early on that I did not want to live

Students from all over the United States are told all through their life that they need to attend college if they ever want to be successful, however, this is far from the truth. Often schools are culprits for driving students to attend money driven colleges, in other cases it is family. While schools all too often make the push on students to continue their schooling, parents can cause the same situation, as they may not have a degree and be working a low-paying factory job. Now kids already don’t want to be like their parents when they get older, so seeing them suffer in poverty or barely above the poverty line can cause some dissatisfaction, further seeking a degree to live a life that they never got. What many

Education is the key to success and without it you will not have a future. That is embedded in my brain. As a teenager you listen to your parents nag on you all the time about school and just think it’s easier said than done. But for me I lived through paradigm, my mom went back to school while raising us and working two jobs. She graduated from ASU with a 4.0 GPA and was honored and on the news because of all she’s done and went through in her lifetime. I have a difficult enough time doing my homework and going to basketball training. My mother went to school full-time, had two jobs, cooked for us, cleaned, paid bills, went to our games and still managed to get a 4.0. She always tells us if I can do it you can. Nothing in life comes easy you have to work for it, then you will be a success, if it is just given to you then you will never recognize the value of it.

Cultural norms have greatly influenced my decision to go to college. In the United States, it is the norm that as a high school student you continue your education and go to college. Everybody expects you to go to college. Your parents, teachers, and your counselors try very hard and pressure you to go to college. When I was a high school student, I always thought that we had an option. You can either go to college or get a job. I was wrong about that. It really isn’t an option when you 're forced to go to college through social circumstances. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t want to go to college. What I am trying to say here is that we need to feel like it is okay if we don’t go to college. We need to know it’s socially acceptable that we didn’t attend college. I feel like I really didn’t make the decision to go to college. Everybody else did. We are made to think that the only way to be financially successful is to go to college and get a degree. Then were supposed to find a job and work our way up. That isn’t always true. Some of the most successful individuals dropped out of college. Another cultural norm that has influenced me is how

See growing up in a large family like mines education was very important. Despite we didn’t have many to graduate from college put a lot of pressure on me. See my grandparents didn’t go to high school or college. So, they were real hard on their kids about go to school and graduate. So, made my parents hard on my brother and me about our education. My brother and me will be the first in our large family to graduate from college. My mom was real hard on me because she didn’t want me to go to in be like her. She had

Baumeister and Bushman referred to culture as “the world of shared ideas” (p. 41). Today, education is one of the many shared ideas that accounts for our culture. Many aspects of twenty-first century society are dependent on and require a higher level of education. This however, was not true for my parents. During their high school years, the importance of continuation to college was not a shared idea. Those who could afford to go to college did, and those who could not afford it, transitioned into the workforce. It was more of an oddity for someone to go to college, continuing education, versus graduating into the “adult world” of a full-time job. This shared idea has changed since then and education, especially that at a college level,

For as long as I can possibly remember, my family has struggled horribly; therefore, I was certain that college was not an option for me. Since my family was low class, I immediately thought I would never be able to be higher than them. Daydreams constantly fluttered in my unconscious, wanting atleast an opportunity to attend college. By the time I was in eighth grade, I was set on having to skip college; although, time went by and once I started high school, I knew I was completely wrong. Realization hit me with force stronger than an eighteen wheeler and I now know that my past does not determine my future.