What is your hometown? Long Beach, CA

What colleges did you attend? Degrees earned? UC Irvine - BS Public Health Sciences
Mt. San Antonio College - Paramedic Program
CSU Long Beach - MS Emergency Services Administration (In progress)

What motivated you to go to college? My parents always planned for me to attend college since I was younger. I felt like I was obligated too and it was something that all my classmates were planning on doing as well.

Describe your college experience as first-generation. Being a non-traditional student, my first year of college was difficult. I am by no means a traditional student (military service member). By being both a veteran and a first-generation college student, I was completely lost my first week of school. Fortunately, I met a lot of great people and made school much more enjoyable.

What unique challenges did you face? Like I mentioned earlier, being older and just out of the military were some unique challenges. My classmates were not cognizant of how to interact with veterans, so often times I was isolated from my peers.

How did you overcome those challenges? There were several things to help me overcome the challenges. I found a group of veterans on campus that were able to help facilitate my acclimatization back to civilian life. I was able to focus more on my classes afterwards and I did not even notice

What did you advise other first-generation students? Go to office hours and ask questions! I am a stubborn person and should have utilized my professors' help for understanding course content more often than I did. This would have made my life a lot easier.