My first two years at Scripps, although incredible, were quite overwhelming. Let’s be honest, the entirety of the college process (college applications and when you’re in the thick of it) is intense. I recall many of my friends in high school speaking with their parents about their alma matters, drawing from their experiences to find their perfect fit. In college, so many new things are thrown at you: from choosing a major, a minor, an advisor, a thesis topic, to schedule planning and class registration, to fulfilling GE’s and internship applications on top of it all. It can be so very complicated and all so confusing. Similar to the college app process, my friends and peers at Scripps often have a support system built into their families, as their parents are able to translate their own college experiences to give advice to their children. Yet, as a first-generation student and one of the first women in my family to attend college, I never had that network that my friends and peers relied on. The college application process, alongside the new things thrown our way in college, was completely new to both my family and myself. I often found myself on the phone with my parents, having to explain over and over again the concept of course credits or double counting, to no avail.

It was pretty early, thus, in my freshman year that I realized I was going to need to find a support system at Scripps to help get me through the next four years. As a triplet, I have and continue to rely heavily on my siblings when times get tough, but because we are going through the confusing college process together, they can provide comfort but not always the answers that I need. This realization led me to perfect the art of asking for help. I became accustomed to visiting professors in office hours, to ask for advice on just about everything. In addition, as I began to create a tight-knit friend group, in a sense, my friends became like my family, where I relied on them to help me through the ups and downs of college. I was never afraid to ask for help, to anyone and everyone who was around me. As my network began to grow and strengthen itself at Scripps, I instantly felt more comfortable and prepared.

Yet, when the spring of my freshman year rolled around, and applications for summer internships were announced, again, the feeling of confusion and panic rushed over me once again. Unable to ask my parents for advice, I found myself at the Scripps CP&R office for drop-in hours for hours on end. The women at the CP&R office were incredibly amazing and helpful in calming me down, and laying out the necessary steps to creating a resume, cover letter, LinkedIn page and so on in order to get accepted to an internship program. With the help of the career consulting office, and my network of friends and professors, I successfully got an internship and was excelling at Scripps.

The pressure of succeeding and making your parents proud as a first-gen student is very real. Rather than letting this pressure get to me, I use it as a motivation to take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way. Having the opportunity to attend college, and take hold of all the amazing opportunities and the network that Scripps provides, is not something that I ever take for granted. But whenever life does get too overwhelming, I know that I have established a wonderful network of people I can rely on at Scripps to help me through the tough times. And of course, I make sure to call my parents and remind them how much I appreciate their support and the opportunities they have given me, which they didn’t have themselves.