The HMC Division of Student Affairs surveyed various community members about their experience as a first-generation college student. My responses are shared below.
Q1: Why did you choose your college and major?
Growing up my family operated Sun Valley Lumber in Lafayette, California, which was a small lumberyard purchased in 1953 by my grandfather Thomas Jacobsen. My grandfather arrived in the US in 1910 at 11 years old, the family fleeing a pre-WWI German occupation of Southern Denmark (great-grandfather Jens Jacobsen ran a dairy and bakery at Rundemølle, one of the old water mills in Aabenraa, Southern Jutland). My father worked at the lumberyard, my oldest sister worked there, and I was probably going to work there too had the yard not gone out of business in the 80s due to a recession and the land owners wanting to put a hotel there. With the yard no longer a career option I decided to become a high school math teacher, having been inspired by “Mr J,” my Algebra-II teacher. Teaching high school required going to College. My middle sister had attended community college and transferred to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, so I applied to one college, Cal Poly. Luckily, I got in. I applied as a liberal studies major but Cal Poly said to teach high school math I should major in math, so that’s how I became a math major. At the time I thought this was mostly unnecessary since, having just graduated high school, I already knew most of the math I would need (was there even math beyond algebra, geometry, and calculus?) and just needed to learn “teaching”.
Q2: What support was in place to help you succeed and ultimately graduate?
My high school Spanish teacher Mrs. Danielle ran an after school workshop on “How to Study in College.” She taught us the “Cornell method” of note-taking and other useful tips. Our family went bankrupt after the lumberyard closed so I had Pell grants and other Federal and State grants and loans to supplement my part-time job income from Round Table Pizza. This financial support was crucial. Tuition was about $800 per quarter and rent was about $400 per month, so loans were about $3K per quarter [1]. A few years later the most essential support system became the dedicated faculty at Cal Poly. Cal Poly, being a state school without a Ph.D. program, was a teaching-focused institution and it showed in how my professors taught and supported me.
Q3: Was it difficult for you to talk about your college journey when you were with your family and how did you navigate those waters?
It wasn’t necessarily difficult to talk with my parents about College, but there wasn’t much to talk about — I was taking classes, paying for most of my education, and working at Round Table while they were doing their best to restart their life by opening a new paint and wallpaper store, and navigate my mother’s breast cancer. They were supportive and encouraging. I was pretty independent by this point and they knew College was how I could become a teacher and hopefully have a steady job.
Q4: Was there a defining moment in your college journey that impacted your career?
Absolutely! The defining moment of my undergraduate career occurred when I took an education course “Early Field Experience” where prospective teachers visit local schools to observe and study. Seeing high school classrooms again after three years of college, and now from the teacher’s perspective, was jarring. I decided there was no way I could do that for a living. However, if I spent two years getting a masters degree in math instead of a teaching credential then I could teach at the local community college. Since Cal Poly had a Master’s Program a new plan was set. I started teaching at Cal Poly during my master’s program and loved it. My course evaluations were positive and I earned a “graduate student teaching award”. One day a professor told me “Jon, we want you to get your Ph.D. so you can teach here at Cal Poly.” This was amazing to hear and so a new goal was set. However, I did not believe I could actually earn a Ph.D. — that was for people who went to Berkeley, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, etc. But my professors assured me I could do it. At the same time, the more math I learned the more fascinating (and difficult) I found the subject. It was not at all the subject I knew from high school or even the first few years of college. With my professors’ encouragement I applied to three graduate programs: UC Davis, Colorado, and Utah, and ended up at the University of Utah. As it turned out, Utah was a great and supportive math department full of inspiring professors. It was not without challenges and the environment in Utah was different from what I grew up with in California. For example, for being a large math department with many professors, there were very few female professors. This surprised me, since many of my Cal Poly professors, especially in the advanced course work, were women mathematicians.
Q5: Any other thoughts about how being first-gen helped your path to graduation?
I think the inexperience that comes with being first-gen helped me. I had little understanding of what to expect and no pressure from my family, so I could just give it my all without being too worried if or when I was falling behind. For example, I took five years to get my degree, but that seemed fine. No one was saying it had to be done in four. Our family’s work ethic and ability to roll with the punches was also important. I may not have learned things quickly and was always nervous to be called on in class, but I found persistence and tenacity more important allies than speed. Being grounded in the working world with career professionals outside of academia also helped. I enjoyed the friendships with my adult coworkers and if college didn’t work out I saw myself making a career out of those work experiences such as restaurant management.
Getting a Master’s degree first was very helpful in my case. I equate my two joyous years in the master’s program at Cal Poly as roughly equivalent to one more intensive year in a PhD program. That experience certainly helped me graduate from my PhD program in four years. As it turns out, earning a PhD is not about being “gifted in math” or anything like that, it is really about completing a marathon. You have to first want to complete a marathon (which for me was defined by my goal of getting a college teaching job) and then engage in whatever processes and trainings that best help you reach that goal on your own terms.
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[1] Footnote on Financial Aid: I borrowed money to support myself and my family during my undergraduate and graduate programs. While I did not have to pay tuition for the masters or Ph.D. programs, I still borrowed the max Stafford Loan amount (then $8500/year) to supplement my teaching stipend ($11,500/year) and support our living expenses (I was married and we were raising our first daughter). My last loan was issued in 1995 and I finally paid off all my loans in February of 2018 after paying ~$400/month for over 20 years. The loan payment was a big chunk of my paycheck but I was grateful for the path that led to a steady job that I love.