Stories from First-Generation College Students
With a $6 million gift from shuttered Newbury College, Boston University opened the Newbury Center in January 2021 to support first-generation (students whose parents did not graduate from a four-year college) undergraduate and graduate students. This year, 18.5 percent of the University’s entering undergraduate class is first-generation.
First-generation college students face challenges that others simply do not, from knowing the hidden code of college—like faculty office hours, or the importance of internships and extracurriculars—to navigating uncomfortable moments around money with friends who want to dine out at restaurants more frequently than they can afford. But first-gen students also bring their own achievements, experiences, and inner resources to campus—perseverance, resilience, drive—that helped them get to BU in the first place. This series will share stories, in their own words, of first-gen Terriers.
In this series
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