This project was conducted by a group of five students in Dr. Diana Graizbord’s spring 2018 course on Social Policy Storytelling. Inspired by the goals of our client, the Office of Institutional Diversity at the University of Georgia, we aimed to learn more about the lived experiences of first- generation students at UGA. By examining the existing literature, accessing secondary data from the university, and conducting interviews with self-identifying first-generation students, we have developed a collection of stories that we hope captures—at least in part—the diverse range of experiences of first-generation students at UGA. It is our hope that this multimedia collection will provide a space to center the narratives of these students, and to make their voices heard.

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Please use the menu bar in the upper right corner to navigate the content of this project. Click Meet the Participants to learn more about the individual first-generation UGA students who participated in our research. On the Stories page, explore our findings by reading and listening to the experiences of these students. Visit Reflections to learn more about our role as researchers and our reactions to the stories we uncovered.

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One of our most common and remarkable findings was that for many of our participants, first-generation status was not a salient part of their identities. Our group member Matt, for example, is a first-generation student but rarely considered this until working on this project. Another participant told us that although she had always been cognizant of her identity as a racial minority at UGA, she had never considered her first-generation status until she saw the invitation for this project. 

 

Though not necessarily a salient identity, we asked our participants to define what it means to be"first-generation" for them. Click below to hear what the first-generation identity means to each of our participants.