| abstract |
In recent years, colleges have been eager to recruit first-generation students. These students are categorized as such because their parents had little to no college education. Many first-generation college students experience difficulties unique to their status. Research and personal experience show that cultural mismatch and survival guilt are two primary challenges in this population. However, with support, the first-generation college student (FGCS) can merge their two worlds and create an expanded identity and a fully healed and integrated life.
In the first sections of this dissertation, some of the trials of the FGCS are explored and elucidated in an academic essay based on recent publications. The remainder of the dissertation consists of nineteen short stories. These personal works are a creative attempt to give the reader a visceral experience of life as a first-generation student and explore the process of acculturation and healing that followed in my own life.
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