Did you always know you’d go to college? 

Certainly by the time I was in high school it was clear that I wanted to go to college, and it was a question of what I would study and where I would go. My mother was the first person in her family to get a high school family, but she was proud of that. There was an expectation to do well in school, and my parents provided as much help as they could.

Who or what inspired you to apply to college?

I wanted a way out of Philadelphia. I was in a difficult junior high in the inner city. One of my instructors was shot to death inside the school. That was a big motivating factor. I realized my ticket out of there was to do well in school. I really upped my game and got into what you'd now call a magnet school. There, I had a peer group that wanted to go to college instead of joining a gang, and things got a lot easier.

Did you have a mentor that helped and supported you as an undergrad?

Not really a mentor, but I had an instructor in an ecology class who was pretty inspiring. He took us on a raft trip down the Cheat River in West Virginia, which was way beyond anything I would have done before. And I had a soil conservation instructor who really helped me understand what my options were after graduating, going to grad school and that sort of thing. 

What resources helped you succeed as a first-gen student?

I had a pretty large peer group of first-gen students that I hung out with. I still have life-long friends from that group. We all wanted to do well in school and we tried really hard and kept each other honest about that.

What advice would you give to a first-gen student today?

If I could go back, I would make an effort to interact more with faculty and get more involved in extracurricular activities. Every time I did, it was positive. I would have gotten even more out of college if I'd gotten that advice.