As a first generation college student, I struggle with feeling inadequate

My parents came to the US from Central America when they were young adults. To them, the American dream was creating a loving and supportive household that their children could grow up in and eventually leave to pursue higher education, ultimately leading to a higher quality of life. Today, that continues to be their dream; my father thinks of it when he practices reading Braille, and my mother thinks of it as she’s bent over scrubbing the floors of houses near Beverly Hills. They think of me, and they tell me how I am “el orgullo de la familia,” or “the pride of the family.”

While I am happy to carry the honor of being the first in my family to go to college, I also carry the fear of entering unknown waters. What is life like at college? What’s it like afterwards? Sure, I have access to various resources to guide me and help me get there, but I am not like most of the students at Brown whose family and friends all consist of college-educated professionals. I don’t have that familial guidance or confidence. And sometimes it makes me feel inadequate.

It’s not good to compare yourself to others. As a close friend’s dad once said, “You can’t be the best because someone will always be better than you.” I imagine that’s a difficult lesson for anyone to learn, and sometimes I can’t help but compare. I think, “Oh man, in my family we don’t really have a standard of being ‘the best’ like my peers do, so I should create that standard for myself. If my peers can excel in multiple areas to varying degrees, so can I.” I have to constantly remind myself that many of the students I compare myself to have had extra tutoring or paid for specific classes in an area or have familial connections I didn’t have. I’ve done a lot and sought out resources on my own. Writing this article as a Brown student, I guess I do have to pat myself on the back.

Yet just when I finish patting myself on the back, I start to feel inadequate again thinking about careers and life after Brown. I feel like I owe it to the people who have supported me to not just graduate Brown, but to have an amazing career. Which is stupid, because I’m the one studying, taking tests, going to teachers, the whole shebang. But when you have a lot of people watching you, you want to impress. And it feels nice to have achieved some personal goals. At some point in my adult life I’d like to be able to go to a restaurant and not be cautious about prices for once. As of now, I don’t know. I’m only a first year. All I know is I want to be able to say, “Look at what can happen if you give a hardworking first gen student the resources to succeed – it’ll be great.”

Fortunately, these feelings of inadequacy are mainly academic and career-oriented. I can thankfully say that in all other respects, I feel perfectly fine at Brown. I owe that to my high school, where I grew desensitized to the high socioeconomic classes that are typically seen at Brown. I also owe it to my amazing group of friends I’ve found here, who are there for me when I want to rant about my feelings at 2am in their rooms.

The last part of the quote my friend’s dad told me is oddly comforting, too. He said, “Sometimes, you are that better someone for another person.” This feeling hasn’t hit me quite yet, but maybe once I learn to stop comparing myself to others, as any healthy person should, it will come around.