Oral History Program Chanel Stevens Interviewed by Chelsee Boehm 21 March 2018 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Chanel Stevens Interviewed by Chelsee Boehm 21 March 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The First-Generation Oral History Project began in 2018 in collaboration with Weber State’s First- Generation Club. The commonly accepted definition of a first-generation student is one whose parents/guardians did not earn a bachelor’s degree. This project was created to capture the experiences of active first-generation students and alumni in an attempt to better understand the challenges that first-gen students face. These interviews explore the difficulties of navigating college, including scholastic and financial hurdles, as well as highlight current students’ future goals and alumni successes. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Stevens, Chanel, an oral history by Chelsee Boehm, 21 March 2018, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Chanel Stevens Circa 2010 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Chanel Stevens conducted on March 21, 2018 in the Stewart Library’s Archives Conference Room, by Chelsee Boehm. Chanel discusses her life and her experiences as a first-generation college student at Weber State University. Alexis Stokes, the video technician, is also present during this interview. CB: Okay, my name is Chelsee Boehm, today is March 21, 2018. I am here with Chanel Stevens. We are going to be talking Chanel’s experiences as a first-generation student at Weber State University. Just for clarity, a first-generation student is one whose parents have not completed a four-year college degree. Alexis Stokes is operating the camera. Alright, to begin, can you tell me where you were born? CS: Actually, I was born in Killeen, Texas. CB: How did you end up in Utah? CS: It’s a long story. CB: If you want to share, you’re welcome to. You don’t have to. CS: Oh no, it’s fine. Well, I grew up in Missouri. I was born in Texas, but we moved to Missouri when I was little. Kansas City is the city I’m from. I lived there until I got married and that was in ’98. Then once I got married, we moved around a little bit and eventually ended up out West where we lived several places which included Washington, Idaho, and the last and most current has been Utah. We’ve been 2 here since 2012. We came here because of a job transfer of my husband’s at the time, but, we’re now doing different things. CB: What did your parents do when you were growing up? CS: My dad was a dental technician. He owned his own dental lab and he owns his own dental lab again. For a while he worked for someone else, but he was a dental tech my whole life growing up. So he worked, what I would consider, out of the home even though he had his lab in our garage. My mother was a stay-at-home mom. She did have a few part-time jobs or things that she helped with, but for the most part, she was home with us. CB: How many siblings do you have? CS: I have two sisters and two brothers. So, I have four. CB: Where do you fall in there? CS: I am the second oldest. CB: So, what was your childhood like growing up like? I mean what kind of things did you do for fun? Or were there any clubs or groups or anything like that? CS: Oh yeah, I did a lot of things. I mean, I didn’t do a ton until I got into school...especially ‘till junior high and high school. Mainly, because in elementary there’s not a whole lot of extra things that you are doing. I think for me, in the community I grew up in, it’s important to know that I’m LDS, and so that was different because there’s not a lot of LDS people in the Kansas City area. I mean they’re there, but they’re spread out. So, the point is, it was me and my siblings 3 most of the time. So that kind of affected my social life. However, I did a lot of activities through school. Early on I did mostly choir outside of school and a few clubs. One year I did a multicultural youth together club (MYT), which was really fun. I think it was just one year that I did it though, just because I graduated after that. Additionally, for two years of high school, I went to an art magnet school, Paseo Academy, in downtown Kansas City. That’s where I did a lot of things in and out of school that were, what I would consider, fun. I was a theater major, I was in a play, and I did a number of little things. I was in a mime troupe for a year, which was super fun. That was probably the funnest thing, because you got to go to different field trips—like we went to the Kansas City Zoo and performed, which was a lot of fun. Yeah, school was where I got all of my social life. CB: Very cool. When did you get married? You said ’98? CS: Yeah, 1998. CB: When did you decide that you wanted to go to university or to college? CS: Well, actually when I graduated high school I went to a community college that was local to my area in Kansas City. I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I just thought it was smart to try and do something and that’s also around the time that I met my husband. So that’s why I stopped going to college was because I got married and I didn’t know what I wanted to be or do. I kind of felt like I was wasting my time there at that point in time. It took me until 2014 to actually get back in college officially. In-between that I had a lot of years learning things on my own since my husband and I tried various business ventures. So I had a lot of 4 education, just none of it was formal. And none of that was directed towards a degree or some sort of a career. Before we moved to Utah, I had been homeschooling my two oldest kids a little bit. I did become really interested in maybe being a teacher since my kids were not so hot on home school. They were like, “Eh… There’s not enough social life.” And so I thought, “Okay, that’s fine.” When we moved to Utah, I decided to get a job as a teacher’s aide for a year, once my youngest started full time kindergarten his first year of school. That’s when I realized, “Okay, it’s time, I can go to school.” I went to Salt Lake Community College [SLCC] in 2014 and finished my Associates of Science for General Studies. Then I transferred to Weber in the spring of 2016 to get my Elementary Education (1-8) degree. CB: Awesome. CS: So, that’s kind of what happened. There’s a lot of stuff mixed in with all of that, but that’s the summary. CB: How much time do you have left at Weber? CS: I do a few summer courses for my minor in ESL [English Second Language], and then in the fall I do my student teaching. This is my last semester of a regular teacher levels routine. CB: And how do you feel? CS: Good, because I already feel like everyone’s mother in the classes I’m in. CB: Do you mean age wise? 5 CS: Yeah, well I mean there are plenty of people in my age group. There are actually several women who are in my age range with families. However, when I’m at college running through the halls, I feel like I’m almost going to school with my son because my oldest is seventeen. I think most my fellow college students would relate to him more than me. I’ve just done so many things outside of a formal educational environment that it almost feels like I’m starting over with this degree, you know? I don’t feel like a new student, I guess is the point. I feel like I’m trying to get done so I can get onto the next phase! CB: Totally. I know you said you were doing a lot of, maybe like non-formal learning between when you went to college the first time and then went to SLCC, can you tell us about some of the things you did? CS: Well, some of it was centered around trying to help my kids by doing home school. There were some online book clubs and groups with other homeschool moms (I actually stay in touch with a few of those groups). The big thing was my husband and I multi-level marketing, which was a huge source of education for us. Especially what I would consider, real world skills, such as working with other people, navigating how to run a business and how to do your taxes for a business. A bunch of those kinds of things. That was a big chunk of our time and focus when we were first married with our first few kids. Then before I went back to college, I was helping my husband with his wireless networking company. I was his office manager. My experience with that had been in other jobs I had while we were young. Of course it was his company 6 where I really took over and got a lot more, well-rounded in running the office side of a company. CB: So, can you tell me what it was like—and this can even go back to your original experience in Kansas City, but what was kind of the experience like applying for college or getting started? CS: I talked about this a little bit when they had a thing for the administration here about first-gen students and other clubs. This is what I told them...I said, “You know the first time I went to college, I was a young ignorant teenager and I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to do. Teaching was the last on my list.” At that time, I was just tired of school, I think. I had been a student who had been, what I would consider, a fairly dedicated student in high school. I felt overwhelmed and I just needed a break from my education. So, I think that really affected my wanting to jump into stuff. I see students now and I can see that’s where they’re at. You know, they’re thinking, “I don’t know what I want to do. Why do you want me to decide?” I felt the same way because I didn’t want anybody pigeonholing me, or telling me, “This is the box you should be in.” I did have several ladies tell me that. They were like, “Oh, well you should be a secretary.” Or “You should be this, or that.” I’m like, “I don’t want to do any of those things.” Unfortunately, I didn’t know what I did want to do instead. So, I kind of felt stuck. When I got married, I think that’s why I decided not to continue to take college classes, because I just felt like I was wasting money...you know? When I was doing the enrolling and that type of thing, I think the only thing that was really helpful for that time period was that a friend of my parents’ worked in the financial 7 aid department of that community college and I actually got a job working there when I first was in college. It helped me just to see a little bit of the background of how to navigate financial aid. everything was way more paperwork because that was in 1996. I started night classes the second semester of my senior year, because I did an early release program where I could work. I went to school part of the day and then I went to work part of the day. So I only had two or three classes my senior year. I wanted to experience my senior year so that’s why I stayed the whole school year. So that allowed me to go and take the night classes at the community college. That is what I did in the first semester and that also eased me into college versus just graduation. Bam. Twelve credits. You know? I think that’s a little stressful. Plus, it was a community college, it wasn’t like a four year university, which can be a little tougher. CB: Considering that experience, was it a little easier to kind of start at SLCC? Of course it was probably still challenging? CS: I think the biggest problem of coming back to school as a non-traditional student was that my life was three times as busy. I was not this easy go lucky young adult that had nothing to do and no bills to pay. That was my experience the first time and I probably would have been a little more dedicated otherwise. The second time, I’m like, “I have to take as little classes as possibly, get this done as fast as possible.” When I first started we weren’t living where we are living now. We were living in Taylorsville which was closer to SLCC. I was barely into SLCC when we moved up to Bountiful, which is where we live now. The transportation was 8 always an issue. It was like, “Am I going to take the busses? Am I going to take the train? What am I going to do?” We didn’t have a lot of cars, we had one car. Attending SLCC I ended up doing a lot of the train and the bus. That was kind of weird for me too because even though I’m a person who grew up in a city, I didn’t do a ton of public transportation. In Kansas City, it’s not something that’s efficient, so you don’t really use it. Public transportation just added more time away, which was a huge strain on my family and my kids. It was stressful, it was definitely one of those times where I thought to myself, “If I didn’t like this so much I’d probably not finish because this stinks.” It was never, “I have twelve hours to work on homework.” I was just fitting it in. CB: Do you feel like SLCC was pretty accommodating? CS: Yeah, I think that is what showed me that I could do it. SLCC is very non-trad friendly, because so many of their students are non-traditional, working professionals, who are just getting the certificate or getting that second degree or whatever it is they’re needing. I think that was the perfect place for me to start. My first semester was actually mostly online, I did a Zumba class early in the morning and then I can’t remember if I did anything else. That is what got me eased back into college without feeling quite so crazy transportation wise. That was scary to be honest, I know that sounds horrible, the scariest part was not wanting to be floating around the city all day, every day. CB: Totally. So, what made you decide to go from SLCC to Weber? 9 CS: Well, I had looked at other colleges and for me it’s all about money and time. First, my degree is education and I knew that Weber had a good teaching program. I heard that from lots of people, especially a few friends of mine that had gotten their teaching degrees from Weber. The other thing that I had looked at was doing WGU [Western Governor’s University] online. It seemed kind of pricey and then also no local support. It would be like, “You’re on your own, good luck”. Since I have this window of time where I’m not working at a regular job I probably should take advantage of the gazillion and one universities that there are in the area, instead of an online program. So, that’s why I decided to look at the universities, and the U of U was heavy pushing with SLCC because they have a program that transfers you fairly easily and creates that relationship there. I saw that was a huge college, I didn’t want to be a class of three hundred or one fifty, or anything in the hundreds. I was like, “Eh I don’t know…” And it didn’t seem like it was a good fit for education anyway. I looked around and I was like, “Well, I’m driving, from where I live, Bountiful. I’m driving about twenty-thirty minutes to SLCC. So, if I go to Weber I’ll be doing about the same. So it’s about thirty minutes no matter what”. So, that’s when I decided to register with and transfer to Weber. One thing that was super helpful at SLCC was I worked at the Thayne Center for my work-study job. I’ve gotten financial aid this entire time. That was the other big factor for me, I didn’t have the excess cash to fund my degree. The fact that I could get financial aid was super helpful. Working at the Thayne Center with a few key people there that were really helpful and a good source of moral support was valuable. They 10 would tell me, “Everybody is doing this, you can do this. It’s not a big deal.” I could say to myself “Okay!” At the tail end of attending SLCC, I joined TRiO because I saw it could be useful to help me navigate Weber and then I transferred over to Weber. So, I hadn’t done a lot with TRiO until I got to Weber, but, now I work at the SSS office. CB: What is TRiO? CS: TRiO is a program for—it can be for low income and first generation, but the more things that you are, the more likely you are going to be accepted in the program... because we are looking to help as much as possible. So, we always ask students, “Are you a first generation student? Do you consider yourself low income?” Also we ask if they are using the disability center, getting services there. That is another thing that can help them get into our program. The main thing that is offered is a support system for those who are new to the college lifestyle or culture because their family may not have done college. Working in that office has been great. We offer a ton of services through TRiO for our students. My favorite, for myself, is the computer lab where I get to make free copies. I know that sounds like not much but... CB: No, they get expensive. CS: ...it gets expensive. Also, when I got hired...when I was interviewing just to see if I would be good for that place...I talked with—Amanda is my supervisor over there—Amanda Neilson. I told her, “I need a home base.” At SLCC, I had the Thayne Center and they do all of the community and service work there. When I 11 came here I looked at the CCEL [center for Community Engaged Learning] office a little bit but I didn’t really feel a connection...nobody really reached out.” Since I was looking for a work-study job I started to focus on where my home base should be around what job I get and what job do I want. Initially Amanda said, “Well, I don’t think we have a work-study position. We could just hire you regular.” I knew it needed to be a work-study position. I don’t really remember if they got approval or what happened because it’s been a while, but, I think what happened is they submitted it and asked for the position be work-study. So, I started working there the first semester of October of 2016 and I’ve just been there this whole time and that’s where I go, you know? There’s even a refrigerator that I can put junk in periodically, because for me, that’s what I needed, a home away from home. As a mom I don’t want to feel like I’m living out of my backpack a hundred percent of the time, that’s not my lifestyle. So, that was kind of a big deal and it’s been a stabilizer for running around and having the different semester routines. CB: Have you met people through TRiO? CS: Oh yeah, the first-generation club is sponsored by Amanda Neilson who is out of TRiO. It lines right up with what TRiO does because it’s for first generation students and I joined the club. This year I was the Vice-President of the club and we’ve tried really hard to build upon what’s been done by previous presidents and continue to make it better. This year, we did our first alternative spring break under the umbrella of CCEL. Amanda was again, our advisor and I was our trip leader. We just got done with that, it was the fourth to the tenth of March. 12 CB: Where did you folks go? CS: We went to Catalina Island California. CB: Way cool. CS: Yeah, it was super fun. It was a lot of work. I’m a little bit older and so it was hard. CB: What were you folks doing? CS: Our agreement was to work with the conservancy on Catalina Island. So, we did beach clean-up one day and we did trail-maintenance the next. We basically needed to move all of these boulders. They were telling us, “You’re going to move these rocks.” and I’m like, “Yes, they are rocks, but, the size? They are boulders!” That word was used a lot during the trip. “I moved a boulder.” but, not on my own. Yeah, it was a lot of work and it was hard but we did have plenty of time to have fun and the people there at the conservancy were really nice to us and really accommodating. They let us camp there as volunteers because they have their own volunteer campsite and gave us volunteer t-shirts. It was a lot of fun. It was a great place to go for our first Alternative Spring Break because we had never done this before and we needed a group that knew what they were doing on their end. So, it was really nice. CB: So, are you folks planning one for next year again? CS: The goal (Amanda will still be the advisor)...we’re working on elections for officers for next year since I’m graduating and getting who’s going to be what, 13 and who wants to help with the trip and that type of thing. Yeah, we want to continue it and definitely become more integrated in the CCEL Alt Break program. This year was kind of like the test run. We hadn’t ever done it, and we were kind of like, “Can we do it? We’re kind of small?”, but I think it went well. CB: That’s great. So, are you a full-time student right now? CS: Yes. CB: Besides being a student, you work for TRiO, and you’ve got kids at home. How many kids do you have? CS: I have four boys, but six boys in my household right now. My nephews and their father who is a single dad, live with us right now and they have since last summer. And so, they’re not my responsibility, but they’re a part of my household. So my household feels a little bit fuller than it had. It definitely is a man cave. I’m just going to say it, video games everywhere. My oldest is seventeen, then fifteen, twelve, and ten. So my youngest is a fifth grader. CB: That’s fun. So, how do you balance everything? That’s so much stuff. CS: I don’t. I mean someone was asking me, “How do you remember everything?” I was like, “I missed two appointments this week. There was another one I cancelled today.” You juggle, you prioritize. It’s constant. I think that’s why I get along with Amanda so well because we are the same age and she has two kids. We were both talking about how it’s never ending. You know, it’s like, “What do you do at midnight?” “Oh, probably laundry.” or “I’m doing my homework.” or “I’m trying to see if all the kids are in bed.” You know? You are just always juggling. 14 CB: So, other than first gen club and Trio, are there any other kind of extra-curricular groups that you are involved with on campus? CS: I am in UCIRA [Utah Council of the International Reading Association], which is a literacy association. They’re going to change the name, they just changed the name for the national organization. It was the ILA, but then they are calling it something else now. They haven’t completely changed it yet, but, they are in that process. Anyway, the club is called UCIRA and it’s through the education department. I mainly did that because my big interest as a teacher is literacy. When I was at SLCC, I did the America Reads Program and tutored with them to earn work-study and service hours. I was a civically engaged scholar over there too. That was something that I really got involved in and I loved it. In studying to become a teacher that was a big draw for me, I want to help people to learn how to read and I want them to figure out, just because you stink at it doesn’t mean you can’t do it. And so, I joined that club, and I’m just one of the officers in there. I do the membership records, which is the main thing they ask me to do. I do some of the Weber Sync club updates because I figured out how to do it. Yeah it’s been really low-key and minimal and that’s kind of why I agreed to do it because I knew I couldn’t take on a lot of duties. We don’t have tons of meetings. The main thing we have going on in that club right now, is that we are doing a service project for an orphanage in Thailand. The education department has a trip associated with it. Last summer I didn’t get to go on the trip. What they did was they went to Thailand and got all the information they needed to be able to create digital storybooks and then this whole year that group has been working 15 on that project through Dr. Byrd. This summer they are supposed to go back to wrap-up. My club decided to make flash cards with the sight words...the first three hundred. So that the kids in the orphanage could practice their English because that’s what it’s all centered around is ESL, which is my minor. CB: That’s awesome. CS: I thought it would be fun to do that, so hopefully, I will be in Thailand in July. We will see. CB: Is it just a matter of raising money? CS: Uh huh. CB: Always money. CS: Well, yeah. My husband’s been wanting to go, because spouses are allowed to go. So, the goal is to raise as much of the money as we can. We will see. CB: That’s awesome. CS: I would love to go. CB: That would be so cool. So, how do your kids feel about you being in school? Do you know? CS: I think that there’s a part of them that feels, “Oh this is normal.”. My youngest started kindergarten and then bam, I was in college. Right? Well, okay, technically, I had a year of working, but then once that was over, I was in college. So, I don’t think he remembers a whole lot previous to mom, having homework and mom running around here and there. There’s part of that as a mom that I 16 worry about. I’ve worried about all of my kids. Am I there enough? Am I what they need? That type of a thing. I remember my mom trying to do some college when I was a kid. What I thought to myself then, is what I think my kids probably feel now. Yeah, they know that it’s important for mom to do that. Yes, it’ll probably help mom and help us but it’s annoying when she has things that come before me. I’m assuming that at some point my kids feel that way. Mom can’t do this because she’s busy, or dad’s at work. So, we try really hard to make sure that we are alternating on helping with what’s going on with our kids. For my boys, it’s been super vital that we live really close to the school. We live literally right next to their elementary school. It’s the same with their cub scouts and stuff like that. Everything is close in the neighborhood and it would be a lot harder if I had to go around driving them to every little thing. So, that’s been a key component to this time period not being so stressful on them. They know they can… they don’t like to walk, but if they have to, they can. So I say, “Well, if you want to go, you can walk.” CB: What advice would you give to a first-generation student who might be interested in going to college? CS: Well, when I tried to go back to college, I was living up in North Idaho. When I was doing the home school and realized, “Hey, I may just go back to college because my kids want to go back to school.” And the main reason I had done home school was because we had been moving and traveling and I didn’t want my kids in a school that I didn’t trust or that felt like it wasn’t going to help them the way I wanted it to. That’s why we did that but, it was a good experience for 17 me to be able to see that I liked it more than they did. I tried to enroll at the college up near Coeur d’Alene. That’s when we decided to move and I was like, “Wait we have to stay, because I got to get in college.” We came here and initially I thought, “I’m not going to college, this is never going to happen.” Especially with the kids I worried “I would be a horrible mother if I go to college.” That type of feeling because as a mom you’re always worrying if you are good enough. Especially when you have a bunch of kids and more than one to focus on. Our main goal when we moved—because my husband’s company that he had and that I was helping with had closed-was starting over. It was like moving on to plan B already in our marriage, and so I said, “This is the time, if anytime is the time, now is the time.” My husband was actually going back to school also— sort of. When he realized that wasn’t working so well, he stopped. He’s like a class or two away from his associates. He says, “Eh, we’ll worry about it later.” but, that’s when I knew “I’m in too deep to stop. I’m taking all of this time away from my family. This has to work.” Finding your why which they say that about a million and one things. When you’re in sales, you got to find peoples ‘why’. For me, I was like, “What the heck is my ‘why’?” That was why I didn’t finish college as a young adult, because I didn’t have a great ‘why’ or a need. Now it’s really about finding something that I want to do that can be a way to provide for my family. Will my husband always provide? I hope so. Do I know that? No. He could get sick. He could die. You know? He could be an invalid, I don’t know. Those are the things, that help me to see I have something that I know I want to do now, and I have a way to make it happen, why am I not doing it? Why would I not? 18 That’s kind of what’s important for anyone, especially a first-generation student. “Why am I doing this? Is it strong enough to keep me going when I’m overloaded? Or when my teacher gave me an F in a class?” CB: Totally. So, what are your goals for after you finish your degree? CS: Get a job. Get a teaching job. Yeah, I really—I had looked at when you’re in your student teaching, instead of just regular student teaching you can get what they call an emergency position. You become a teacher right away. It still counts towards your student teaching but it’s not quite the same experience. It’s not quite the same mentorship. You’re on your own and so, for me, there’s a little stress there. I’m like, “I don’t know if I want to do that.” The draw of thinking, “Well, I could get paid right out of the gate would be wonderful.” So, I haven’t decided anything. But, I’m thinking about it. CB: And you said you are going into elementary education? CS: Yes. CB: Is there is a specific grade or level that you are looking at? CS: There are. Well, you’re normal elementary education degree is kindergarten through sixth grade. But, Weber, who is very unique with this, does a first through eighth grade for elementary education degrees. Mine is a first through eighth grade degree which if I get an endorsement or some kind of a minor that would work in a junior high or middle school then I could teach up to eighth grade. For now, I’m thinking I like upper elementary. 19 CB: Very nice. CS: Yeah. CB: What is the thing that you are most proud of being a first-generation college student? CS: When I was looking into, “Am I first-generation?” I thought, “Well, my parents got some certificates or something. Did they do college?” Initially I didn’t realize a bachelor’s degree was needed to be a graduate. If they did any college then they are first-generation. Right? That was when I was in SLCC and I didn’t actually find this out until I was here going to school at Weber. I always understood they were just high school graduates. My dad had done a dental program through the military and that type of thing after high school. My mom had done some other certificate thing for nursing after high school, but it wasn’t any type of degree. I thought, “Okay, well they haven’t done anything major”. Then I find out less than a year ago, or it might have been a year ago, that both of my parents dropped out of high school. My dad had gotten his high school diploma through the military. And my mom got hers through a Vo-Tech program where she lived. An extension of a community college type environment. I was shocked and thought, “You mean to tell me, both of you did not finish high school and I’m just now finding this out at almost forty?” It was really interesting to see how the fact that I didn’t ever know that my parents didn’t finish high school affected my outlook. I wonder what I would have been like or if I would have said, “Well, Mom and Dad didn’t finish High School why should I?” I didn’t have that experience growing up because I assumed that I was supposed to finish high school. My siblings and I 20 all finished high school. Two of my siblings now have at least a Bachelors in something too. I think just having that mind set made a different because my parents decided not to tell us the whole truth. I say, “That’s okay.”...I didn’t need to know that, but it was interesting. CB: So, as far as disadvantages, what do you think some of the things that first-generations students have to face. Obviously, stepping into new territory, but what are some of the other things? CS: Money. CB: Totally. CS: Money, because for me, my biggest hurdle growing up (because I thought my parents graduated high school and expected college and you know wanted me to pursue something) was, “How am I going to pay for it?” My parents at the time that I was in community college made a certain amount. But then they started making more once I was married and out of the home. So, if I had been a younger child of theirs I would at some point not had been able to get financial aid. Once you’re married and a newly-wed, you’re not a financial aid spotlight. So, I think it took me a lot of years to figure out what I want to do, how it’s going to happen and if it’s worth it. I had a big stigma about why do I need a college degree? Why can’t I educate myself if it’s going to cost so much because there was all this stuff in the news about college students leaving college in debt and not being able to get jobs with what they got a degree for. And I’m like, “I don’t need more of that [debt].” I have kids...a family to provide for. If I’m going to go to 21 college it better be an asset! I believe for any student, especially for a first gen who doesn’t have a lot of money to put towards this, that’s a big question. Is this going to be an asset or is this going to be a degree that I sit on while doing something that I didn’t need a degree for? It’s good to find the answers to those questions. I don’t just assume that it’s impossible...I go found out what it is that I need to do to make this worth it or is it a no go. CB: So, do you hope you’re kids will go to college? Do you expect them to go to college? Is that something you’ve kind of conveyed to them or? CS: I expect them to do something. Pretty much at this point it’s just joking because other than the two oldest ones they are fairly young and it’s going in one ear and out the other, right? I’m like, “You know, I’m fine with you living at home. Maybe with a small amount of rent if you are either- A) Doing a business or B) In college. If you just have a job at McDonalds. I don’t think so.” You can go shack up with a friend if you just want to work at McDonalds or just want to get a job where you’re going to make whatever. But if you want to do something that’s going to take a little more of your resources, I’m willing to be a part of that base to help you out. But you need to do something. So yeah, they’ve got to do something. Especially since...I don’t know...I think, for me...I look at them as being boys and I’m like, “You know someday you might get married or you might have a girlfriend or a kid. to provide for.” Aren’t you going to want to be the example of success and not “I don’t want to do what Dad did” or that type of a thing? If Grandma and Grandpa are doing something I think the kids should be doing something similar or better. 22 CB: Totally. We’ll we’ve gone through all of the questions I have. Is there anything else you want to add? CS: I don’t know. I think it’s just cool that you guys are doing this. That this will be a record that somebody can go look at if they want to pick someone’s brain—third party, you know? And then I won’t have to sit down later and talk to somebody. And hopefully when I’m like sixty or sixty-five and retiring I will like this video. I won’t think, “I was insane”. No, I think it’s good that you guys are doing this. I’m a big supporter of genealogy and recording history. CB: And we are hoping that this can be, like you said, a resource for other people and maybe if first-gen students can find something, and in all of the stories if they can find even one thing that they can find and relate to that they can hold onto. CS: Oh yeah. CB: So awesome. Thank you.