First-generation students celebrated at banquet
Students and faculty met in the Evan N. Stevenson Ballroom in the Utah State University TSC on Nov. 3 to celebrate students who are blazing new trails for themselves and their families. The Aggie First Scholars program held its annual “I Am First Banquet,” which featured multiple guest speakers, highlighted by keynote speaker Alan L. Smith, interim president of USU.
AFS is designed to unite first-generation students to help them navigate their college education. Along with creating groups to support one another, the program offers multiple scholarships to help members along their journey. The banquet provided an opportunity to celebrate those first-generation students across campus.
Sophomore Hayden Walker, student coordinator for AFS, highlighted how important it is to have a group on campus where first-generation students can meet and give each other support to face the challenges of college.
“It’s crucial to have a group like this. From my personal experience and from other people’s stories that I’ve heard, as first-generation students, we come into college with no idea what to do because our families haven’t had experience with it before,” Walker said. “Aggie First Scholars was like a home to me because it taught me how to study, and it taught me how to be a successful student. Also, hearing other people’s stories as well helped build that community where I felt that I do belong here.”
To begin the event, multiple students in AFS shared small thoughts and notes about the program. This included one student’s poem about her unique experience of having autism while in school, and another student highlighted the accomplishments of the program over the course of the past year.
Following the introductory remarks, the time was given to the Smith, who shared his own story of being a first-generation student and learning to navigate through school. Throughout his speech, he highlighted various lessons he learned across his journey, starting from his athletic career to his focus on academics.
According to Smith, being a first-generation student requires strength and resilience, since students are in a setting others in their family haven’t been in before.
“Own your own story,” Smith said. “That should be a great source of belief in yourself. Carry that forward. Don’t be afraid to fail forward. It is through failure that we learn deeply, and realizing your potential is about pursuing challenges and learning from them.”
He also emphasized the importance of risk-taking throughout college and pushing one’s limits to find out how far they can go.
“Take risks, especially when you’re young,” Smith said. “What you’ll come to find is, more often than not, when you take those risks, you come out the other side in pretty good shape, and the ones you don’t, you’ll just take the learnings and move on to the next.”
To close out the night, Walker shared about his journey so far through school and the help AFS has given him during his time here.
“As I continue to spend my time here with Aggie First Scholars and other first-generation students, I’m amazed at the resilience and strength that I see in them every day,” Walker said. “I’m motivated by their acts and by the dedication that they show me. We come from different backgrounds, but we all have the same experience, and we share the same drive that we want to grow and to become better.”