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even mock final exams to students who are first-generation, low-income or from rural communities—or all three. Jose Villar, the senior student program advisor, offers a unique perspective when he encounters baffled first-year firstgeneration students. “In my household,” Villar says, “college was never talked about. It was never discouraged or encouraged.” He came to UNM from Grants High School knowing almost nothing about college life, took some of the wrong classes that didn’t count toward his major and missed out on a Pell Grant. And in social settings, he hid the fact that neither of his parents had attended college. “As a freshman, any time I was asked that question, I lied,” Villar says. “I was embarrassed.” Villar (’05 BBA, ’12 MBA) is trying to change the identity of first-gen from a disability to a strength.
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“I toe a weird line,” he says. “I encourage students to embrace these opportunities for assistance and support, but then I look back at 18-year-old Jose who was embarrassed to admit his parents never went to college. I think we need to look at it in a prideful way rather than, ‘You’re at risk.’”
Finding Your Way, Changing Your Life
When Olivia Carpenter got off the plane at the Albuquerque International Sunport, she was a scared 18-year-old who was navigating the higher education system on her own. Her mother, with a two-year nursing degree, had the most formal education in her extended family. Carpenter, who went to high school online in her native Los Angeles, came to UNM’s attention when she qualified as a National Achievement finalist.
“I got a letter in the mail that said if I applied and was accepted by a certain date I would get a four-year scholarship that covered tuition, fees and room and board,” Carpenter says. “So I learned how to spell Albuquerque and moved here. I came here sight unseen.” She arrived as a chemical engineering major, got a job in a neuroscience lab and took classes in the Honors College for fun. Struggling with science and not enjoying it, her semester GPA dropped below the 3.3 required to hold onto her scholarship and she found herself in danger of going home. Meanwhile, she loved her literature classes in Honors, especially those taught by Renee Faubion. But Carpenter, like a lot of firstgeneration college students, worried that switching to a literature major might undermine one of her goals for attending college—financial security.
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