Wattz Up! - College 101: A first gen guide

·1 hr 43 min·5 clips

Melissa reveals how being the first in her family to attend college created intense pressure and a feeling of being lost.

What happens when college expects you to already know? Melissa opens College 101 by naming first-generation student experiences and asking how schools can show up better. Then it gets personal. A guest talks about arriving with self-advocacy already built from high school, ready to hunt down whatever support might exist. Upward Bound, TRIO, Chicago Scholars, and College Possible feel like actual doors here, not campus brochure filler. She had to ask directly. Finding the TRIO office, and the person assigned to her, made the institution less foggy and more human. It did not fix everything. Homesickness, getting sick over and over, urgent care visits, and a pandemic-era second year made those first two years heavy. One mentor kept close, though. The guest says her College Possible mentor was probably why she got through that stretch, because the mentor taught the small college systems people assume you already know. Email the professor. Talk to the professor. Advocate in class. Find resources before silence turns into struggle. The advice is blunt in a useful way. If students do not go to events, talk to people, and ask questions, they may never find out what support they qualify for. She helped two other people find mentors because she recognized they probably qualified and pointed them in the right direction. That is the community piece. First-generation students may not need hand-holding, but they do need someone standing beside the institution. Melissa keeps it youth-made, direct, and a little chaotic, with Yollocalli's radio energy around a serious guide to getting through college without pretending it is easy.

As heard by us

A candid first-generation college guide about finding support before dropping out feels like the only option.

College 101, A First-Gen Guide gives college advice a personal center, with host Melissa speaking from the unsettled position of a first-generation student early in college.

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Why you'd press play

Press play when college support feels hidden and you need a first-generation student to map where to start looking.

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