Installment One
By Keyle Pacaja
Under the Surface
By Keyle Pacaja
My name is Keyle. I'm a first-generation student here at Lasell University. During this time, I will be talking about my struggles and other things I’ve faced during the process of me going away for college. My parents didn't understand the terms “college” and “independence”. Everything was new for them even though I tried to explain to them the best that I could. The concept of me leaving and getting accepted to college was hard on them. My parents tried to ask my family members if they knew anything about this. Word spread out around my family members and I felt bad at the time because I knew they were trying to understand me and how the process works but we weren't meeting until the end. This was hard on me because even though I could speak Spanish for some reason it felt like I was talking in another language when we were talking.
During my high school years, I asked my teachers to explain to my parents about college and give them some sort of an idea of what that meant for me and how that will affect me in the future. There would be times that I would joke around about me leaving the state and going to California and my parents would not like that idea. They would instead tell me “What’s wrong with New Jersey schools?”. I didn’t want to tell my parents that I wanted to leave because a big part of it would be I want to find my independence and have some space during my college years. My mom, in particular, wasn’t too happy with the idea of me having independence and I could tell she wanted to protect me, but I needed to leave the nest and become someone on my own. In many ways, I would give hints to my parents that it’s not only me in the school that is going away for college but many others and her response would always be “That’s them and not you”.
My mental health was not great at the time and I was trying to speak to other people in the school to help me out with this struggle. As time was going by I wanted to get more information from outside resources and go to my counselor from school, and have her explain to me the process and how everything would work when it came to the common app, FAFSA, and course requirements. I felt so behind but I knew if I didn't ask questions I would be as confused as my parents and I didn’t want that to happen to me. I didn’t have siblings or close family members to ask for guidance. I had to face this by myself. The biggest fear from all of this would be how would I come out from all of this and whether I would be able to go to college and live the dream that I want and from what I hear from other people who came into my high school and described their college experience.
Another thing I would like to point out is that even though I had a lot of help from my counselors and other people from my high school, I felt like I was stuck in a bubble with no guidance. My parents were not understanding where I was coming from and I tried over the course of my high school years to have them come with me to meetings and show them an outside perspective about college. Even though there was a lot of conversation about the topic, they did understand halfway through my senior year and had a glimpse behind the scenes about the college applications and noticed I was being serious about it. We had our ups and downs but as parents, they wanted to support me in my dreams and want the best for me in the future.
Comments