It’s a Powerful Thing to Shift Your Mindset: Maximizing the Duke Experience as a First-Generation, Low-Income Student

As we prepare for so many prospective students to arrive on campus for Blue Devil Days, I’ve been reminded of some of my most cherished memories from when I attended as a freshly admitted high school senior.  

I was so excited to be there, having just committed to Duke the day prior. I was excited thinking about what dorm I might be in, my life on East Campus, and how many new people I’d get to meet. I did have my worries, though. Coming from eastern North Carolina, where I knew the infrastructure was not quite as strong as it would be where many of my classmates were coming from, I worried about how I would keep up academically. I also worried, just as many of you may be, what my interactions with other people would be like coming from a different class background than many of my peers here.  

Now, almost halfway through my Duke experience, I can safely say that while your path may look a bit different from some of your classmates, taking those unique challenges in stride to maximize your experience here is such a powerful thing. It took a bit of a mindset shift for me.  Still, I think that finding these ways of gaining community and feeling empowered in my ability has been extremely salient in helping me find my place here and unlocking access to the world of opportunity ahead of me. 

Class and background can be challenging to discuss - I know that much firsthand. However, one of the biggest things I’ve learned here is that if you ask for help, many people will often jump to help you fix it. For example, I tried silently for two weeks to find a solution to getting my costly first set of textbooks when my refund check from financial aid hadn’t come in yet. Eventually, I worked up the courage to ask my professor about it, and she got me all set up within a day and showed me resources for future classes. I haven’t paid a dime for textbooks or lab materials since. In hindsight, it felt silly to struggle on my own when the solution was so simple. That same theme carried throughout the rest of my Duke experience. Once I got over my aversion to asking for help, a lot of things fell into place; I got my summer research experience fully funded last summer, attended a conference in my major field, got a grant to compensate me for the unpaid medical technology program in Uganda this upcoming summer, am going on a trip to Guatemala with a club, and planned a fully-funded study abroad semester in Spain this fall. Surprisingly, I even got some materials to support my tenting experience for the Duke vs. UNC men’s basketball game. All I had to do was ask. 

Another big worry of mine coming into college was finding people like me. The single greatest piece of advice for incoming freshmen at any university would be to find ways to build your community the moment you arrive on campus. My first Duke event freshman year was Project Identity & Culture, which is part of Experiential Orientation where new freshmen spend their first week on campus with a project of their choosing. Project I&C focuses on cultural groups, community organizing, and overall belonging on campus. We got to do a lot of fun activities around campus and spend a few days exploring Washington, D.C.. Getting to meet people who were interested in getting involved in a lot of the same things I was assured earlyassured me early in my freshman year that there was a community out there for me.   

Shortly into my first year, I became involved with the Asian Students Association as a first-year representative on the political committee, where I now sit as the chair of our large-scale events. ASA has been such a welcoming place to share ideas about what community means to us, to bring the Asian/American community together through our work, and to collaborate with the amazing people on executive boards of different cultural organizations. I’ve also gotten to be a part of the then-brand-new Filipino students’ association, Pamilya, for which I happily serve as the Vice President.  Having a group that truly feels like family and that I get to celebrate with has been a community like none other. We’ve even assembled a little musical group to perform Filipino songs on campus and around the Triangle area! 

The most rewarding experience, though, has been getting to know first-generation, low-income students like me who are thinking about Duke. I got to be involved in Blue Devil Days through Duke LIFE, our FGLI organization, last year and I was happy to officially take employment on the Duke LIFE team this year, working with prospective students on how to make higher education possible for them.  

These pockets of community have been some of my favorite parts of my college experience. If there’s any advice I could give,  it would be this: stay open to anything that comes your way, reach out when you need it, and find your community wherever you are. All the rest will fall into place.