“Fake it until you make it.” While a common phrase in the leadership/business management advice genre, it’s genuinely how I survived my freshman year as a first-generation college student.
My maternal grandparents grew up in the Depression-era poverty that surrounded the lumber mills around Ashdown, Arkansas. When World War II ended, and my grandfather came home from the front lines in Europe, there was no work in the Texarkana area. He and his young family moved to northeastern Oklahoma where he found a job at the newly opened BF Goodrich tire factory.
My grandmother could make the best biscuits ever over an open fire. My dad could tune a guitar to perfect pitch without a tuner. Those were just a few of the many skills they taught me. But there was one skill they could not teach me: navigating the world of higher education.
This year marks my fourth and final year of college. It seems just like yesterday I was walking up the stairs of Francis Crawford Hall, too many bags in hand, to embark on my educational journey.
OUACHITA VOICES
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