Navigating PWIs as a Student of Color: A Dialogue with Diversity Advocate Gregory Saint-Dick

Ever wondered what it takes to be a first-generation student of color in a predominantly white institution? Gregory Saint-Dick, diversity advocate and the director for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, joins us to shed light on his personal journey in higher education. Gregory gives us a glimpse into his world of advocating for first-generation students and shares the insights that compelled him to write his book, "Negotiating Your College Success."

After years of experience, Gregory has navigated the turbulent waters of higher education, developing habits that made a difference. He recalls his daily library visits and the significance of meaningful interactions with faculty members. He generously shares these experiences, offering valuable advice on how students can negotiate and communicate effectively with their professors. Listen in as Gregory reflects on the importance of student feedback when writing his second book, "Negotiating the Ivory Tower."

Gregory shifts gears and shares his insights on how to support first-generation students in college. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the student's story and the need to create a comprehensive schedule that captures every dimension of college life. The pandemic has changed how students connect, and Gregory provides timely advice for academic advisors to help first-generation students of color succeed. Don't miss the final segment as Gregory reveals resources for further learning and support, and shares how you can reach out to him. Tune in and get a fresh perspective on diversity in higher education!

Gregory's Bio

Gregory Saint-Dick is the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of Negotiating Your College Success: The Guide for First-Generation Students of Color. His passion for empowering students of historically marginalized identities has fueled his career as a student development professional for over a decade at four institutions, mentoring/ advising over 300 students. In addition to his professional credentials, his lived experience as a first-generation, low-income student of color who attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, one of the largest predominantly White institutions in the state provides a level of knowledge that current and potential students could benefit from.

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You can find me at https://www.firstgenfm.com/ and on LinkedIn. My email is jen@firstgenfm.com.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

Hi and welcome to First Gen FM, a podcast for educators who want to learn more about serving, working with, celebrating first generation college bound and college students. Welcome, greg, so great to have you here on the First Gen FM podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 0:35

Yeah, my pleasure. So I'm here with Gregory St Dick, and he is the director of director for diversity, equity and inclusion at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and he has done work in multicultural affairs and mentorship and leadership for many years let's say several years and also does graphic design work on the side. So I'm really excited to have you here to talk about your book and to talk also about how you got into this. So, of course, my first question is going to be what's the spark that made you decide that you wanted to work in higher education and that you wanted to work with first gen students?

Speaker 2: 1:15

Okay, so my story, actually it begins as a college student. So during my freshman and my sophomore summers I worked for the National Black College Alliance under Chip Greenidge, who is now actually at Harvard as well, and it's a nonprofit where they bring like local inner city students from the city of Boston to like college tours right to HBCUs, to local colleges, and just to get them acclimated and excited about college. We assist them with their college applications, their resumes, their just the entire process to prepare them for college, and so that was like my introduction to working with first gen low income students of color, and I'm gonna kind of fast forward a little bit more. So after college I actually had a position at Roxbury Community College.

Speaker 1: 2:24

Okay.

Speaker 2: 2:25

And that was my first higher ed position, like full time higher ed position, working under my mentor, elizabeth Clark, who is now at North Beach University, you know, and you know there I worked in student life, the student engagement office, and I was managing the mentoring for success program. It's like a first generation mentoring program where we, like we match students first gen students with faculty and staff. I was there for about two years. Then I transferred to Northeastern where I got hired to be their student development coordinator to manage the legacy mentoring leadership program, which is a peer mentoring program. And then from there I moved on to Leslie University working as an assistant director for the Urban Scholars Initiative. Then I got promoted to director of multicultural affairs there and now I'm here at Harvard at the Graduate School of Education.

Speaker 2: 3:33

So you know, it was just a long journey, about like 12 years working in higher ed. And since I've started I made a conscious effort to like always include, like first gen students in all my work, you know. So that was my passion because I was also a first generation, you know college student attending PWY, umass, amherst, and so, like even my story, my college story, which I think we're going to go into it, you'll see why it's really important at least for me, you know and how my experiences actually assisted me in my professional field.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Yeah, and you talk a lot about that in your book, which is called Negotiating your College Success.

Speaker 1: 4:23

Then you wrote, based on your experience and specifically for students of color who are going to predominantly white institutions for college, and you made I mean, we could just talk about that for hours, probably because you made so many good points for students, for students to think about and then for folks like me who read it to remind us to think about some of these things that our students are coming in with, whether that be working through new things with family now that they're away at college and the family's, you know, at home, with culture shock, which I want to talk about later but a lot about, you know, faculty and advisors and finding, you know, meeting with the faculty and finding good advisors. So I'd love it if you talk a little bit more about your journey with the academic piece and some of the recommendations that you think are really important in the book. And you know, feel free to talk about, like any aha moments as you were writing the book and or even just why you wrote it.

Speaker 2: 5:21

Oh, okay.

Speaker 1: 5:23

That's a lot right there yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:25

I guess I'll start with why I wrote it. So actually the idea came at Northeastern. One of my students I'll shot him out, a Renze who was a part of the legacy mentoring program, and one time he was in my office and he was like you know what, greg, you should write a book. And I was like that was random, you know. And he's like no, but every time, you know, a student will come in with an issue. You have a solution, you know, and so you should create a book where it's like a one stop shop. They could just and I remember he says in the long lines of this could be like, you know, the higher ed Bible for students of color, like you know, I'm paraphrasing, but essentially he says something along those lines.

Speaker 2: 6:08

And I thought about it, thought about it, thought about it, but I was always busy, you know. So I was like I'll get to it, I'll get to it. But then something clicked and I was like you know what, let me just write one chapter. And then another week came by, I was like let me write another chapter and then, you know it, just, it was routine, you know, and I have a family and I have a wife, I have three kids, so I'm always busy. But in between time I was like you know what, I can write about this.

Speaker 2: 6:37

Or if, let's say, I'm dealing with an issue on my campus, I'm like, oh, you know what, wow, that'll be a great chapter or something along those lines and I'll write about that, you know. And so, because at first I was debating if I should just create a blog, you know, then I was like you know what, let me just go with the book. But then I was thinking, oh man, it's probably gonna take me more time, right? Because you know, I'm thinking the book has to be so many pages. And then some of my students at Lesley University was like, what are you doing? It should just be a short e-book. And I was just like you sure, and they're like, yeah, like nobody's reading old, like come on.

Speaker 1: 7:24

Like they're not reading old books anymore.

Speaker 2: 7:26

Yeah, you know, like it's for students, right? And I was like, yeah, and they're like, yeah, so definitely make it shorter. And I was like, okay, so I was like, all right, let me focus on making the book concise, right Straight to the point, with like useful information that I know students could grasp, understand and execute with you know. So, yeah, hold on. What was the other part of the question? I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1: 7:49

Did you have? No, I asked you like 15 questions all at once, which makes me a terrible interviewer. So it's.

Speaker 2: 7:55

Now you're doing great so far.

Speaker 1: 7:57

Okay. So when you were writing it, did you have any sort of aha moments yourself, as you were like, either recalling your own experience and you're like, oh, that makes a lot of sense now, or as you were just thinking about, you know, looking into the research about you know how students of color succeed or don't at PWIs.

Speaker 2: 8:18

Yeah, so it was a bit of both. So Let me backtrack a little bit more and talk about my experience as a college student. So I attended first started in high school. So in high school I attended South Boston High. It broke into like three schools so it was like Excel, monument, odyssey. I was a part of Excel High and from there I attended the Museum School of Fine Arts. So back then I thought I was gonna be a visual artist. So I was like I'm going yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:55

And when I got to freshman orientation, I was literally the only black student in my freshman cohort, right, yeah. And I just felt like I didn't fit in. And so it was like, within like the first week of the orientation, I was just like, yeah, I don't feel like I relate to any of the other students, I just it was a different environment, different culture, everything Like they introduced us to faculty at the Museum School and at Tufts and I was just like, ah, you know what, this isn't for me. So I remember asking like, if I leave right now, do I have to pay anything? And they were like, oh no, you're good to go. I was like, all right, I'm outta here.

Speaker 2: 9:35

And then the following semester I attended RCC, roxbury Community College, which was like 90% at the time, was like 90% African-American slash black, right, the student population, yeah. And from there I transferred to UMass Amherst. And when I transferred to UMass Amherst, the same thing that I experienced at the Museum School I experienced at Amherst, and Amherst is like 100 times bigger, right, it's just a really, really large school. So I remember driving around campus with a bunch of my friends who are from Boston but they attended MassArt, mass College of Art and Design. And so after they left, I just felt isolated, I felt by myself. I'm attending classes at the Eisenberg School of Management. I'm literally like one of like, and you know usually how the school is like. You may see another student of color, but I'm definitely the only black male student in all my classes, right, with the exception of maybe the large, like auditorium courses, yeah, the lecture courses, right, like the statistics class and everything which is like 300 students you'll probably see a few sprinkles of like other students of color.

Speaker 2: 10:58

And so at first I was really like it's looking like I'm about to transfer. I really was committed to transfer. I was like, yeah, I'm just gonna transfer to UMass Boston, I can't do it. Like I was experiencing a culture shock, you know. And so one day I'm walking past the admissions building and I just happened to see one of my friends from Roxbury Community College and so he transferred over to Amherst this semester before me and so I'm just talking with him and I'm like I'm telling him like I can't do it here. He's like what are you doing? You gotta come to Southwest. And I was like what's Southwest? He's like, cause I lived off campus, but like I lived in the north side of campus. Southwest is like the area where it's supposed to be, like the urban side of UMass, amherst, and so they have the large towers and everything and as well as students of color actually reside.

Speaker 2: 11:59

So he brought me to that part of campus and it just opened my eyes to like everything you know, I met a bunch of student leaders, I got involved with student government, I got involved with the university programming council, so I just became really, really active on campus and from there the culture shock went away and then I started to realize, to just accept my differences right Now. I never experienced imposter syndrome during my time in college, you know, but I just felt like I couldn't relate to other students. And then you start to, you know, hang out with them in the calf, at parties, different things. So you start realizing like, oh, you know, although these are like white students from you know boarding schools, from private schools, you know, from other exam schools and everything you go, you know they know different than me, you know, and my other friends. And so, like I started just building different relationships. I started getting closer with a lot of my faculty members, the advisors, you know, the staff members that work in student life, you know. So I was like I started to appreciate my college experience more, and there was one class in particular at UMass Amherst was, I believe it was my negotiations class, and it was just funny because a lot of the concepts in my book is in a way kind of driven from that course.

Speaker 2: 13:47

And so I remember like the professor literally was telling us, like you can negotiate anything, and I was like anything. And she said something along the lines of when you get pulled over, right, don't you want to negotiate your way out of a ticket? And I was like yeah. So I was like so why can't you do the same thing with grades? And this is a professor telling me this, right, yeah, I just took heed to that.

Speaker 2: 14:18

And then so, from there, I never forgot that, and so I was like all right, well, let me like create like a phrase that I could share with like my friends, and I used to just say like I used to have a whole bunch, but I used to say stuff like grades aren't what you earned and what you negotiate, right, Right right, and so people were like what are you talking about?

Speaker 2: 14:42

Right, because several of my friends will like, let's say they didn't get the ideal grade that they wanted, they'll just accept it. I will refuse to accept anything and I used to think like, hey, it's worth an ax, right? Like if it's a no, then it's a no, but it's going to be automatic no if I don't ask right?

Speaker 1: 15:01

So Right, you're guaranteed to know if you don't ask Exactly.

Speaker 2: 15:04

So I would just like treat college like as if I was treating my career or anything else, where it's like, hey, if I was buying a car or if I was buying a home, I'm going to negotiate the price. I'm just not going to accept the regular price, right, let me see what I can do to make it be in my favor. And it always helped, it always worked out. I wasn't like the smartest student, right but, and I was so active so I made a lot of mistakes too, like being so involved in extracurricular activities that it affected my academic performance in the beginning, right. So then I remember I received academic probation which scared me, right, and I was like you know what? All right, I got straightened out and just focused on everything, and so I just developed different habits.

Speaker 2: 16:04

I went to the library literally every day At night. I wouldn't leave the library until all my homework was done, and I used to share a lot of information with my faculty, like with the professors. I'll let them know. Like, hey, I'm dealing with this. And during that time we were planning a student strike, which worked out in my favor because a lot of the faculty supported us, and so that was good, because it was tough, right.

Speaker 2: 16:34

And so I had to talk to a lot of faculty and they were on board. So sometimes, like, if I couldn't attend the class or if I'm planning like either a protest or I'm sitting somewhere in a meeting with the provost or something, I let all my faculty members know and they were like, don't worry about it, they'll say, hey, submit this at this time or whatever. And there were some professors that were like you know what, if you can't attend this class, then you should just drop it. Right, and so. But that's natural, right, like it's normal.

Speaker 1: 17:12

So that's negotiate that Like what are my choices? Should I do this instead and then make choices based on what you knew your faculty members would do?

Speaker 2: 17:22

Yeah, exactly so from there. So now let me fast forward a little bit. Now I'm now a administrator and I'm working with students like that or like me, right, and so, you know, now I'm, like, you know, 10 years, they're senior, so I see myself in all of them, you know, in different pieces. So, and, but working in this field, like working in the areas of accessibility, access, dei, things of that nature, you, you learn that there's so many issues that our students are dealing with, that's on academic right, some are personal, some are social, some are economic, you know, and so, like, my job is to make sure that the students, you know, essentially do not drop out right or flunk out, and so I'm hearing their issues and I'm trying to create solutions with them.

Speaker 2: 18:26

And so one thing that is strange to me is and they all attend, like you know, freshman seminar. They all, you know, for the most part, attended some form of a freshman orientation, but they were never taught how to like, negotiate or how to even communicate effectively with their professors. And so, because I found it so strange, I was like, okay, you know, this is where I could assist students, right, and so, along with other things, obviously, but that was like probably like the number one thing, that kind of felt like a lot of low income students, a lot of first gen students, a lot of students of color, they drop the ball at, you know, and so I just wanted to be that person to pretty much coach them through that, you know. And then, and finally, I'll also say, like you know, and identifying their fears right, because it's not like a lot of even the students who are coming from underperforming schools, they can adjust right to the academic rigor, but you know, their fear is they don't want to be viewed as inferior or they don't want to be viewed as, oh, they can't compete or they don't belong, and so they keep it to themselves, they, they, they they're not like open about asking for help and right, which compounds things and they go down the road that creates several other problems.

Speaker 2: 20:05

You know, and so you know. So usually I like to create the environment, wherever I work, where students could just be 100% open with me. You know, and so what I've learned and you know, I've attended so many trainings and certifications, and so one tip that I picked up was you know, open up about your experience first, you know, with students, and so once they could, once they find that that connection right where they feel like they can relate to you then, they'll open up, because now they feel comfortable in talking about their fears, because they know that you're not here to judge them, right, but you're here to help.

Speaker 2: 20:46

And so that's that's helped me out a lot, especially with creating the book. Like, it's not like I had a focus group per se, but I had a number of students from North East and from Lesley University that I worked with that assisted me with certain chapters, right, like, make sure you talk about this, you know, highlight this. And I was like, okay, yeah, that makes sense, or okay, I'm gonna work on that or I'm gonna change this, you know, because I really yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 21:19

I really wanted the approval of my students, you know, beyond anything else, like it's great for you know for me to hear from other educators like applauded me about the book, but it meant more when I heard it from you know, my students. So that essentially was like the motivation behind the book is like if I could create I know it's impossible to create all the scenarios that students will face, but if I could highlight most of the major ones, then you know it lets them know that, hey, I'm not coming from a cookie cutter solution that you usually hear during your freshman seminar course, but this is specific to students of color who also are low income or limited income and who are also a first generation who will happen to be at predominantly white institutions.

Speaker 1: 22:17

Right.

Speaker 1: 22:18

And those and those you know. You talk about the students going to orientation. Those messages may not be given to them at orientation and they have to wait until they connect with their peers, who may also be lower limited income or who may also be students of color, to get that kind of secret knowledge about how to navigate a PWI. So your book, like you said, it won't answer every single question they ever had, but it gives them a lot of good information to start off with and even recognizing things that there are going to be microaggressions, you're going to experience racial battle, fatigue and there's going to be culture shock, like it's. It's okay that these things it's not it's not the right words, not okay that they happen, but it's you are not different or necessarily being singled out individually when those things are happening and there are some strategies for how you can work around that.

Speaker 1: 23:19

So talk about that culture shock piece that you you talk about in the book, and strategies that that we can, we can employ to help students work through that.

Speaker 2: 23:32

Okay. So definitely I would say, if you have a student that you believe is struggling with culture shock or is giving you some signs of culture shock, what we, what you could do is, you know, for one, try to introduce the student to other students of color, right. If the institution, like the college or the university, has a first gen mentoring program or a student color mentoring program, see if this student will be willing to join that program, be a mentee in that organization or that program, right. And if there's any affinity groups right On campus that you know that actually discuss issues around, you know, like culture shock, self-fatigue, microaggressions on campus, you know, and giving students like strategies to overcome it and work with, work around it, do some to that group as well. If, or even if, just as a student organization right, that's culturally but like based that could help as well too. So you just don't want the student to feel alone during their, their academic pursuit, right, because they're going to look around, you know, especially, in the classroom.

Speaker 2: 24:59

Exactly, especially in the class, when you know you have group projects and so you know people are all linking up with their friends, or you know people who just connecting to other people, and if you're like the only person of color now, stereotypes may play a factor, microaggressions may play a factor, and so your classmates may be hesitant to ask you like, hey, you want to partner with us, you know, and so you may need to talk to somebody and they may need to give you advice of like you know how to change your approach. Like I could talk about myself. I remember when I first arrived at UMass Amherst, I had such a hard interior, right Exterior, like I just I didn't even realize it about myself until one day I was walking to my apartment and everyone is saying hi, good morning, good afternoon to me. But you know, growing up in Boston we never did that.

Speaker 1: 25:59

No, you don't right.

Speaker 2: 26:00

I'm like so confused, like why do people want to talk to me, like what's going on here? And then I was like Greg, it's you, you need to relax, you know. And I was like okay, and I was like, all right, let me try smiling more. You know, like I was so used to, you know, having like a matipan state of mind where it's like I'm walking around with like a screw face and not even realizing it, it's just this is my don't bother me face, and so I had to learn, you know, to be more inviting. You know to to crack jokes and show my charisma. And you know like, and that helped people be more comfortable around me, you know, as I'm learning to be more comfortable around them, you know. So just sharing all of this with with your students is important, you know. And and again, with with culture shock, it'll take time, right? Yes, some people it could be, because you know what I'm saying Like, and a lot of universities, right, the and not all students of color actually go through the same thing, right?

Speaker 1: 27:07

Right, yeah, there's not a monolith. Students of color are all the same yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:12

Some of them were fortunate enough to go to pretty diverse high schools, right, and so they're they. They already have that. You know. They've prepared for this somehow from their high school experience. So when they came to college, it was an easy transition.

Speaker 2: 27:29

But for those like myself who attended and even though my high school again, I went to selfie, right, I went to a school that's like 50% students of color, 50% white, but these are white Irish working class students, so I felt comfortable around them because I felt like, hey, they can relate to me. You know, we listen to the same music. Although they may be white and I'm black, it didn't necessarily matter. You know pretty much all in the same socioeconomic ladder, right, like the all in the on the ladder. We were on the same location, same position and we're all striving to move up together.

Speaker 2: 28:06

When, when you go to, you know a lot of schools like North Eastern, harvard, mit, you know these are schools where the best of the best are attending, right, no-transcript, there's other ways to actually address it too, so like, for example, if and I believe this is one of the questions but if a high school wants to prevent culture shock from occurring with their students, right, I would encourage those high school students to attend a pre-college program right, and so the more competitive, the better. Right, get them used to being around students that are diverse, right? Students that are from all different walks of life, and during your pre-college program, wherever school you attend like if it's at BU, bc, northeastern, what have you this is great because they get a taste of what college is like, and they they get a taste of the academic rigor. You know how they interact with faculty, how they interact with their classmates, and so that will prepare them for college, right.

Speaker 1: 29:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:36

Like I will also say to like, if I was like a high school teacher or a high school counselor right To encourage students to do college tours, but to do it from when you're signing up for the college tour. Request a student leader of color to give the tour. You know, and the reason why is because what I've noticed about a lot of our college tours is, you know, there's just one generic version for all students, right, but you know students of color have particular needs, especially if they're, you know, first gen students.

Speaker 2: 30:22

And so there should be certain things that are highlighted that benefit those students right. And so usually a student leader of color, even if they aren't necessarily a first gen student or low income student, they may be familiar with. You know the cultural center, or you know this section of the library that you know where all the students of color hang out, or you know this is the spot where everyone chills at, or you know, like, yeah, the on-planes, where yeah, where they're gonna find their people.

Speaker 1: 30:55

However, they define who their people are. Yeah, I think, talking encouraging students when they're on campus to go to some of those cultural centers and just stop in and say hello, I just think it's so good. And the other thing I think about pre-college programs is they're seeing faculty and the faculty were teaching those courses, I would say are probably some of the most approachable faculty and so they're getting that chance to talk to the faculty, who may be intimidating because like, oh my gosh, all this stuff that they know, I can't believe this. And yet there they are approachable, they're chatting, they wanna talk to them, they wanna get to know a little bit more about them and why they're there. That's such a good opportunity to break that barrier of I can't talk to this faculty person because they're faculty. So I think the pre-college program is really good advice.

Speaker 2: 31:51

Definitely definitely.

Speaker 1: 31:53

Really good advice, as I'm listening to you and you're talking about like actionable steps and things I always like to close, and so you've already said pre-college programs. If you're in the high school and you want your students to kind of get a head start and experience in a in a calmer, gentler setting, maybe a little culture shock and talking to faculty, than pre-college programs are a great place to start, and just really talking to other students when they're on a campus visit is some great advice. What advice do you have? What's one thing those of us in college can do to maybe be more welcoming or more cognizant of students as they're coming through, whether that's first gen status, socioeconomic status or and or all of those things together, right students of color.

Speaker 2: 32:51

Well, to be inviting. I would say the number one thing is to always point students in the right direction, and the reason why I say this is because it doesn't matter which institution I'm working at, right Students of color will come to the office or they'll come around my office looking confused and I'm like hey, can I help you? And then they're like I'm trying to find this and trying to find that they're giving me the run around, they're bouncing me back and forth from different offices, and so that could be frustrating, especially for a first gen student.

Speaker 2: 33:23

And so if you're aware, let's say you don't even know where to point them in right or what direction to point them at you probably know, you know something, or you probably know who can solve the problem, right, so, you know, just be that helping hand to that student at the moment, you know, and view the student as a human being, not like a particular number. Right, with a lot of academic advisors and it's not necessarily their fault it's like their workload is so large, right, so they can't really build that personal relationship with their students, you know. And so they just do everything by the book, right, but the book is usually created for, you know, the average student, right, but what about students who are outliers? Right, and so what about students with, you know, responsibilities back home?

Speaker 1: 34:23

What's the?

Speaker 2: 34:23

stress, who are commuting on campus.

Speaker 2: 34:26

You know like these things have to be factored in as well, and so try to, as an educator at an institution, you know, try to understand the student's story, you know, cause that'll better help.

Speaker 2: 34:41

You help them and I know this may be tedious and usually I tell students to do this, but as an educator, you can probably assist them with, like creating like a master schedule, right, where they literally document everything, like their classes, traveling to classes. They even documented times to eat, snack, hygiene, socialize, like all of that right and so, and the reason why it's important, cause, like you're aware of this, cause you work at Northeastern, like I also worked with, like the foundation year scholars, right, you know that program is tough because a lot of these students are trying to get into Northeastern, you know, and they're trying to get that scholarship and so they have to maintain a particular GPA, and so a lot of them are like stressed out and you know. And so I'm like, hey, you know what, if you implement this right, it's easier for you to, because I kind of look at it. If everything's like a business, right, let's say we're entrepreneurs and I usually share stuff like this right, because I always go.

Speaker 2: 35:58

You know, college is a short term investment towards the rest of your life and the reason why I'm like this exactly so I'm like hey, imagine, all of you students are just entrepreneurs, and you know, because an entrepreneur doesn't work at typical like nine to five, Like they'll work morning, day, noon, night, weekends, you know, it doesn't matter, they're on the clock, right. So they always have to calculate. You know how much money are they like if they have to calculate, let's say, the revenue that they generate within a year. Divide that by the day, divide that by the hour or the minute, right? And so the concept of like a master schedule is almost the same way when it's like.

Speaker 2: 36:42

You know, if college is a short term investment towards the rest of your life, then you need to guarantee success. The way you guarantee success is by knowing what exactly are you doing at all times. If you feel like you're underperforming in, let's say, calculus, right Then maybe you have to put like another hour towards your calculus studies, right. And if you're like you know which students are, like I'm always busy, I have no time.

Speaker 2: 37:08

Right right as your advisor, let me see that schedule right I go. I don't know you could cut back on your socializing with your friends right here, or you could, you know, do something like you know, like you could work with them.

Speaker 1: 37:22

I don't see that hour of TikTok scrolling in your schedule.

Speaker 2: 37:26

Exactly, yeah, you know so, and and you got to understand too, that sometimes it's difficult with some students because, although they're college students, some of them aren't mature enough to actually understand the importance of being on campus right, and so that may take time. Some of them may need to fall to then rise up right. Like myself, I need to be on academic probation to finally wake up, right. So sometimes they just need that. I'm not saying they need it, but you know, sometimes it's okay for them to make a minor mishap right To finally get it like okay, this isn't a game, I need to stay focused, you know.

Speaker 1: 38:13

Yeah, yeah, I think that's true and it works different. And again, all students are different. Some of them, you know, they need that first they're still high school students through the first semester, and then they become college students the second semester, because they realize what they need to do to succeed and what worked in high school is not gonna work in college. And so I agree, that's our job is to help them figure that out, give them space and time and maybe some of the questions to reflect on so they can figure out their schedule and what's happening. And you know, either they don't have enough sleep in there or, you know, they're just not taking care of themselves because they're only having desserts and not eating healthy, whatever that may be, you know, or they haven't found where they belong yet, and that can be really off-putting for a lot of students too.

Speaker 1: 39:05

You know, and I think that pandemic kind of affected how students connect as well. So, yeah, so working through that. So I really appreciate all your time tonight and sharing these ideas. Tell me I will put this in the show notes where can people find your book and how can they get in touch with you if they have any questions or they wanna chat with you?

Speaker 2: 39:28

Definitely okay. So the book Negotiating your College Success the Guide for First Gen Students of Color right, you can find it on either payhip, like P-A-Y-H-I-P excuse me dot com, or Amazon, you know. And or, to make it even easier, if you just go to, like my website, gregorysaintdickcom, and you just scroll down, you'll see a link to the book where you can purchase it right there, okay that's Saint, Spelled Out S-A-I-N-T, not S-T, Just so you know how to find it everybody.

Speaker 2: 40:05

Yeah, definitely so, here. Gregorysaintdickcom, or, for sure, just GregSdcom, may that be easier for your audience. You know it just links to the same website. And yeah, and also, if anybody wants to like reach out to me or just for like any advice in regards to their first gen students or anything, you can just send me an email at GregorySaintDickcom, g-r-e-g or Y-S-A-I-N-T, d-i-c-k at gmailcom and I'll respond. Or even LinkedIn. You know I'm also on LinkedIn and I've been pretty busy on LinkedIn lately, so I'll definitely get back to whoever you know. Yeah, because, again, this is my passion to help out first gen students of color, so you know, any way I could help, you know, send me a message.

Speaker 1: 41:05

Thanks, greg, and I knew that. That's why I so wanted to talk to you and get you on the podcast. So thank you so much for being here and if you want to get in touch with me, if you have ideas about who should be on the podcast or you want to be on the podcast, you can find me at firstgenfmcom or you can email me at gen. That's J-E-N at firstgeng-e-n fmcom. That's gen at firstgenfmcom. Thank you again for joining me this week and I will see you again next week with a new episode. Thanks, instrumental MUSIC.