Defining college readiness from the inside out: first-generation college student perspectives

Community College Review, Fall, 2005 by Kathleen L. Byrd, Ginger MacDonald

Five participants shared how they were surprised by their own success. Many of the participants became quite animated, sharing their stories of being surprised and the continued struggle to recognize their own work as "good enough" for college. One participant, when asked what he would give as advice for nontraditional students, said: "[They] need to know it's possible!" This study suggests that nontraditional students may be more prepared than they think for the demands of college and, moreover, that their life experiences may contribute to college readiness.

Knowledge of the college system and having personal support were all mentioned as important factors for success in college. All participants reported that they lacked sufficient guidance and support from family or high school counselors to help prepare them for understanding the college system. Awareness of financial aid availability was an area in which participants felt particularly underprepared. One participant, even though she reported being academically prepared in high school through advanced placement classes, said: "I didn't know how to get [to college] or what I needed to do, and [my parents] were not so helpful in that area because they didn't know either, so it's kind of been learn by trial and error." While six participants spoke of having parental encouragement to go to college, four of these six also emphasized that their parents had little to offer because of their own inexperience.

Discussion

One distinctive finding of this study is that first-generation students' life experiences contributed to the development of skills perceived as critical to success in college, in other words, work experience and family motivations gave students the time management, goal focus, and self-advocacy skills that prepared them for the demands of college. While academic skills are clearly important, time management, goal focus, and self-advocacy emerged as more important through stories, experiences, and reflections. These skills, it seems, are woven into or emerge out of life experience more than do academic skills.

While the results of this study do not emphasize academic skills, one interesting finding is that college reading was an area in which participants felt particularly underprepared. Reading skills mentioned included vocabulary level and the amount of reading required. This discrepancy of feeling underprepared for reading but not for writing could be because students come to college expecting to be challenged by writing but not by reading, and then they are surprised by their ability to write well. Also, writing and composition courses are offered at the college level and many colleges offer the support of writing centers, while reading courses are usually offered only at the developmental level.

This study provides insight into the development of nonacademic skills that previous researchers have recognized as important to college student success. For example, the emphasis on goals in this study aligns with research conducted by Hoyt (1999) and Napoli and Wortman (1996), which identified goals and commitments as fundamental to college student retention. Likewise, time management may be an obvious factor for college readiness, but the fact that participants of this study expressed it explicitly, emphatically, and often underscores its importance. More importantly, the theme that emerged from this study is that first-generation students develop strengths that prepare them for college through their life experiences.