The Wealthy Kids Are All Right Research Assignment Paper

OBSTACLEs OF FIRST GENERATION STUDENT
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Institutional Affiliation
Introduction
First generation students are defined as students whose parents have not attained a bachelor’s degree. Such parents have no or little idea of college life; they do not know what to expect of their children after college. Also, the parents have little knowledge of what the college life is like for their children; they do not understand the financial, academic and knowledge needs of their children. Lack of parents' knowledge about college life has made first-generation students face several obstacles in colleges. These obstacles encompass academics, financial, knowledge and social obstacles. In this article, these obstacles and their possible solutions will be outlined.
Academic Obstacles
Grade Point Average (GPA) is an important consideration in colleges. Students must have high GPA to be granted scholarships and other benefits at school. For the first generation students, they lack enough information of what is required of them about their academic achievement at school. These students do not know how to work strategically to achieve academic excellence in college; this can result in poor performance which in return can result in missing or losing scholarship grants (Riggs, 2014). To solve the problem, first generation students must work hard enough in their academic life to achieve good grades to help them retain or get scholarship grants.
Most first-generation students come from poor backgrounds. Their humble background makes it impossible for them to have enough funds to cater for their needs in college. These students do part-time jobs to help them cope with the financial needs of college life (Riggs, 2014). The part-time jobs consume most of their time, approximately 30 to 40 hours a week (Riggs, 2014). The much time taken in part-time jobs leaves these students with little time as compared to other students for their academics, and this is the main reason for their poor performance. Therefore, for a student to do a part-time job and at the same time excel at school, the student must outline his/her schedule. The schedule will greatly help the student know how to manage time well. Proper management of time is essential to greater academic achievements.
Choice of best majors in universities is a primary challenge to first-generation students (Riggs, 2014). Since the parents of these students never attended universities, the parents have little knowledge of the best majors at the universities. This leaves such students with an option of solely determining his/her major in the university. The sole decision results in students choosing majors which may not be in the market. Such students need to get career counselors or schools which can offer them the best advice on which course suits them and why (Riggs, 2014).
The first generation students lack basic ideas about college life. First generation students suffer from lack of information of what college life is like; this is because the parents to these students did not attend colleges and therefore can in no way provide information that can help them prosper in colleges. In most cases, these students also attend lowly ranked schools that cannot provide them with enough education about college life. Such students leave their homes and high schools with no or little ideas of what is expected of them in colleges; this can lead to dropouts from colleges (Dynarski, 2016). The lack of information about college life can also result in such students not completing required college administration paperwork; this can lead to dropouts. For students to deal with lack of information, they need to attend informative programs and counseling sessions organized by their colleges to help them curb the problem of dropping out of colleges (Dynarski, 2016).
Most of the academic obstacles these students face are connected with their high school academic life. The first generation students mostly attend public schools. Some of these schools lack the necessary facilities to give these students proper academics to help them survive in colleges. For example, the resources in the library are not suitable for the levels of the students; the students have to use resources which are below their academic level standards (Sumnar, n.d). The classrooms do not favor students, they are old and during rainy seasons, water drips from the roof, this makes students uncomfortable in the classrooms. Also, the computer and science laboratories are not equipped to encourage learning. These conditions make these students acquire academics which is not sufficient for the college academic life. The governments can subsidize the cost of construction, laboratory equipment, and books to help these public schools give students education necessary for college life (Summar, n.d).
Lastly, these students face problems related to the English language used in schools. Since the parents are not highly educated they speak little English in their houses. This makes their children have little knowledge of the language (Cardoza, 2016). These students are forced to take time to learn the language to excel in colleges. First generation students can overcome this obstacle by involving themselves in local college activities; this will help them learn the English language faster.
Knowledge
Information, understanding, and skills are essential preliminaries in acquiring college and university education. The high schools which the first generation students attend do not have enough materials to prepare them for further studies. These schools have libraries with old books, in some cases, the books are torn, and some page numbers are missing (Summar, n.d). The old books do not give these students enough information about some dynamic subjects learned in school. Lack of information is a challenge since these students will see everything in the university as new. The government should subsidize books to help these schools acquire updated books (Summar, n.d). Lack of enough information combined with the fact that English is not their original tongue, make these students face difficulties in filling the University forms and doing the essays required in the applications (Alvarez, 2016). The students can get help in writing their essays by consulting a consular, who may be available online (Alvarez, 2016); this can help give these students easy time in college applications.
Universities unfairly treat first-generation students. These students are forced to miss universities admission, which is normally offered on academic merits because they are from poor backgrounds. Universities see rich parents as a source of funding, and therefore their children can be admitted even with a lower SAT scores, For example, The Duke University admitted Maude Bunn despite her lower SAT score. The Bunn family was coffeemakers, this made them rich, to woo them as donors The ...