Assistant Professor of Fashion and Textiles Bharath Ramkumar begins each class by leading his students in a five-minute meditation encouraging them to focus on their breath and positive affirmations for the day.

My plan is to work as an artist for a while and have that experience, and then get my teaching certification and be an art teacher. My dream would be to open my own school someday and give kids the chance to have more fine arts training.

Growing up where I did, I worked at Howe’s Caverns and always loved walking through the caves and exploring. That helped me realize Earth Science was what I wanted to do. I definitely want to teach middle school earth science in a rural school district.

I sometimes think back on all the obstacles I had to overcome and feel satisfied that I’m able to sit in a classroom learning about the subjects I’m passionate about. And when I think of the future, standing at my graduation and having that opportunity to tell my parents that I’ve made it, gives me such a great feeling.

Obstacles I faced were not having the knowledge of how college really works and the challenge of learning everything first hand instead of someone giving me advice.

Learning how to navigate a series of systems that I had very little access to prior to going to college was the biggest obstacle for me. College was an entirely different culture with new languages and unspoken customs that made it difficult for me to navigate, and not having access to services that helped to teach me how to navigate college made it especially complicated.

Being a first-generation students means so much to me. It shows me how hard my parents worked in order to come here and want me to continue higher education.

To me, being a first-generation college student means that I'm taking control of my life and making independent decisions about my future. By being a first-generation college student, I have learned life skills and fundamentals of life. 

There are always the financial obstacles. My parents did not envision their sons going to college. Coupled with that, we were a blue collar working class family, so money was tight regardless. I was fortunate to excel at my studies in high school, and my local community college had a program where students graduating in the top 10 percent of their class could attend tuition-free. 

It means that as the first female in my family to go to college, I was doing something the women in my immediate family only had dreamed of doing.

Being a first generation student of any kind can be intimidating at times when you feel like you may be alone on this journey. However, in my experience, in many different aspects of life, those feelings of being on a path by yourself are largely internalized feelings that can be remedied, and proven untrue, through involvement in various organizations/activities, and overall a willingness to be "comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Being a first-generation college graduate means a lot to me because coming from a family where college was either never finished or never started at all made me all the more determined to be the first to earn a four-year college degree.