FirstGenFM
Navigating Academia: The Journey of First-Generation Working Class Graduate Student Lauren Harvey
What does it feel like to navigate the world of academia as a first-generation and working class graduate student? This week, I had the privilege of exploring this question with Lauren Harvey, a current PhD student at Rice University. With personal experiences and a wealth of insights brimming from her own journey, Lauren doesn't hold back as she delves into the challenges, triumphs, and the unique struggles of her academic life.
This episode is an exploration of the reality of being a first-generation graduate student. Echoing through her stories are the cultural shocks, the unease of feeling out of place, and the struggles associated with financial constraints. But Lauren’s story is not just about the struggles. We also explore the power of journaling, a tool she used effectively for processing and understanding her experiences, and delve into her article titled, "A Guide for First-Generation Working Class Grad Students". The theme of the three Cs - community, consciousness raising, and claiming space - forms the backbone of surviving and thriving in the world of academia.
As we wrap up our engaging conversation, Lauren emphasises the critical importance of support, especially from faculty and staff who can truly understand the unique struggles of first-generation students. She stresses the need for compassion and humanity in academic spaces, and a call for more an empathetic and inclusive approach to students' experiences. If you're a first-generation student or if you're someone supporting them, this episode is a gold mine of experiences, insights and guidance.
Bio
Lauren Harvey is a graduate student of Sociology at Rice University. Her research examines inequality in higher education using insights from feminist theory. She is currently working on a project that identifies the institutional effects on social-psychological outcomes of first-generation, working-class students.
Please help others find this podcast by rating and reviewing wherever you listen!
You can find me at https://www.firstgenfm.com/ and on LinkedIn. My email is jen@firstgenfm.com.
What does it feel like to navigate the world of academia as a first-generation and working class graduate student? This week, I had the privilege of exploring this question with Lauren Harvey, a current PhD student at Rice University. With personal experiences and a wealth of insights brimming from her own journey, Lauren doesn't hold back as she delves into the challenges, triumphs, and the unique struggles of her academic life.
This episode is an exploration of the reality of being a first-generation graduate student. Echoing through her stories are the cultural shocks, the unease of feeling out of place, and the struggles associated with financial constraints. But Lauren’s story is not just about the struggles. We also explore the power of journaling, a tool she used effectively for processing and understanding her experiences, and delve into her article titled, "A Guide for First-Generation Working Class Grad Students". The theme of the three Cs - community, consciousness raising, and claiming space - forms the backbone of surviving and thriving in the world of academia.
As we wrap up our engaging conversation, Lauren emphasises the critical importance of support, especially from faculty and staff who can truly understand the unique struggles of first-generation students. She stresses the need for compassion and humanity in academic spaces, and a call for more an empathetic and inclusive approach to students' experiences. If you're a first-generation student or if you're someone supporting them, this episode is a gold mine of experiences, insights and guidance.
Bio
Lauren Harvey is a graduate student of Sociology at Rice University. Her research examines inequality in higher education using insights from feminist theory. She is currently working on a project that identifies the institutional effects on social-psychological outcomes of first-generation, working-class students.
Please help others find this podcast by rating and reviewing wherever you listen!
You can find me at https://www.firstgenfm.com/ and on LinkedIn. My email is jen@firstgenfm.com.
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, lauren, to First Gen FM. I'm really excited to have you here today. Thank you, I'm super excited to be here, nice. So we're here with Lauren Harvey, who is a PhD student at Rice University down in Texas in sociology.
Speaker 1:So, a little different from, like, all of us who are in education, who have studied education but most of us who have studied education are probably studied other things as well but I know from having had some students who were grad assistants of mine, who were in social work, that it's a really different way of looking at things and thinking about things and I learned so much from them. So, lauren, I'm really excited to learn even more from you today, especially about that article you talked about, but we'll get to that in a minute. I first asked my usual question, which is what was the spark that said like I want to write this article or I want to help people more in education? What got you going on the path?
Speaker 2:you're on.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I mean, my research interests have always kind of centered around education, education access and inequality and things like that. So I think I've always been well, at least during my college experience like very attuned to kind of what was going on around me, for myself, for other people, in their educational experiences. So, of course, going into the first year of graduate school, I was journaling all the time. I literally brought a journal not an academic like taking notes journal, like a personal journal with me in my backpacks, class, and anytime I would get overwhelmed or frustrated or confused I would rip out the journal and just start like journaling, like right there in class, because I was like I can't lose this memory of these experiences. And so, yeah, I think you know, after the end of the first year at least, it kind of felt like you know that metaphor for like pressures, making diamonds or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:So I kind of came out the other end, as you might say, and that was just the first year. But I came out the other end and kind of had like a okay, like I can look at this from a kind of bird's eye view, point of view now and be more not objective, because I hate that word, but I can be more kind of impartial to what my experience was, and you know it's less emotional now. You know, thinking back on it and I think that there was a lot of things I experienced that, even though I didn't you know a lot of other people experiencing it or I should say hear about a lot of other people experiencing it I knew that it had to not be just my experience. I just knew it couldn't be. So that was kind of the spark for the article itself and yeah, the rest is history.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So do you feel like you're experiencing? So you say in the article that you were first generation and working class when you went to college and obviously that continues into grad school. Is there anything in your undergrad experience that prepared you for the, for going through that first gen working class experience again in grad school?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I had some pretty phenomenal mentors women mentors throughout my undergraduate experience and I went to the large kind of public university in my hometown so it wasn't like I was going there specifically for the mentorship experience, like I just got really lucky and very privileged to have had relationships with the people that I had there. One of the main kind of formative experiences and that prepared me for graduate school in general was the McNair Scholars Program, which is one of the national TRIO programs, and I had two really great mentors there. I met some of my best friends in the program and that program is for underrepresented students in graduate school, so students from low income and working class backgrounds and predominantly students of color. So that was a lot of not just the literal financial support to help you apply to graduate school and here's how you do your application, but also like the you know, learning how to be a professional a quote, unquote professional and kind of the learning, the lingo of the academy and like all of these things that people don't really think about when they think about you know graduate school. They kind of just think about all the research and then you get the stipend and then you, you know, teach a couple of classes or whatever, but like that's a fraction, I think, of what the working class experience is like in graduate school. So that was one of my main preparations.
Speaker 2:And then, even before I got into the McNair Scholars Program, I had a really, really wonderful mentor who actually was the one who encouraged me to apply to graduate school.
Speaker 2:She's first gen and she's working class herself and you know I she was. She was my women's studies major the first semester of undergrad. So like the very first like class that I had, I walked into her classroom and was like women's studies, like this is about like women's health, right, which it is not about women's health, it's about someone's, more than that. But you know, like, coming in, being like totally like I have no idea what's going on here, and she really like I think she really like saw herself in me and so you know, I started working in the department that she was in as a student worker, like a front desk attendant, and I remember her one of like the very, very formative experiences of my undergrad was, you know, she always helped me throughout the whole experience. But when application time rolled around to apply for McNair, she was like, hey, have you, have you thought about McNair, like do you know what it is?
Speaker 2:I was like yeah, I heard of it Because I was in the earlier Trio program, Trio SSS. I heard of it but honestly, like I don't really know if I'm going to do it or not. And you know, maybe I'll apply next year or something, when I have like more experience and like I'm more prepared. But I just don't know. I don't really know like what graduate school is. So like I don't know, I don't know, Probably not. I'm like you're going to apply, You're going to apply.
Speaker 1:She wasn't going to accept that answer.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. And she said you're going to apply and when you get in I'm going to be your mentor, and so that I mean, that was that, and of course I listened to her.
Speaker 2:I was like well whatever you say, I mean you clearly know better than I do, so I will. And yeah, so so I would. I would really say like it was just the mentorship and the women in my life who, like, were insistent and like wouldn't take no for an answer, like I see this in you and you will, you will, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:I see the potential in you before you see it, and so I'm going to.
Speaker 2:I'm going to push you yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. Yeah, that's such a good story, and mentors are just so significant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and tell me then before, before we talk about your articles and I'll tease the three C's that you talked about in your article.
Speaker 1:What were some shocks then? So you know you have great success, obviously because you got into grad school. You got into PhD program at Rice. You had great success navigating undergraduate. You get to graduate school and there's some things that are surprising and unexpected and you know cultural changes, yeah. So what were some of those? You know that you thought like okay, I've navigated this, like, but wait, this is different in grad school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I mean, well, first of all I moved across the country for graduate school. So there's the kind of just I mean I think for anyone when you like make a big life transition right, like not just to graduate school but like physical life transition, it's like kind of you lose your sense of self for a little bit there and it takes you a while to kind of get regrounded. So like there was just that basic component to it and you know I had being in McNair. I was kind of prepared for some things. I was like you know I'm going to be with a lot of people who you know, most people who go to graduate school have parents who have at least a bachelor's degree.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I knew all of these like demographic things. I obviously knew like financial challenges were a thing and I thought, you know, like I have research experience under my belt, I'm, you know, I there's nothing I don't know. There's nothing that anyone else knows, that I don't know, but that's just not true. Going into the first year, I think some of the like shocks or just like things I wasn't expecting was just kind of this way of being a way of you know going about the world. That was like new to me and it sounds so weird and it's hard to articulate. But I think, like a lot of you know working class students, I think a lot of like non-working class students, students of color, you know, experience this kind of like habitus shift. I'm a sociologist, right, so Pierre Bourdieu is like very, very important and big and in my discipline and this idea that like just the way that we present ourselves like physically and the things that we're interested in, like those all change a lot depending on your class background. And so like I came into a space where, like the things that people were talking about, I was like who I've never heard of that person before, or the way that we, you know, talk about really like big, important issues in the world right now. The way that I would have them with my friends, have those conversations with my friends back home, was significantly different than the way that people were talking about them in graduate school. And so, you know, throwing around all these like big words and talking about all of these like very important and complex geopolitical systems, like it was just like so much that I was like I'm sorry, I'm just confused, like just confusion everywhere all the time, and so like it's those kinds of things that are hard to articulate but that you know, when you are in those like social situations you're like oh yeah, no, this place is not like for me, like this is not where I'm supposed to be, or at least that's how you kind of feel when you're walking through them. So I would say that those are the main shocks.
Speaker 2:The other one, which I kind of mentioned a little bit in my article, was just like you know, I got my acceptance letter for graduate school and it has like the you know the stipend in there of how much I'll be making my salary, and I was like score, like yeah, I am rich, like it was just like over the moon. I was like I'm going to school and they're paying me for five guaranteed years, like, yes, and I get there, and everyone's like are you kidding me? This is ridiculous. And even my institution is like one of the better funded institutions in the country and you know, and there's so many movements right now, like grad students all over the country are unionizing for a living wage, and so that was like a shock to me.
Speaker 2:And not to say that like it's a bad thing, of course, like we need to be like advocating to pay, you know, grad students living wage, but like, but I was rocked, like it was just, you know, I was like, oh, I thought that I did it, like I thought that I got to the place and like I was at the top of the mountain and it looks like I am not even close. So that was another shock, it was a humbling experience. I would say, but yeah, so those are, I would say, are the main things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, those are big things and did your journaling help with in that first year, as you were coming up against these things and having these realizations and whipping out your journal at every opportunity. Did writing it down, talking it out like through your journal, help with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it did, because the thing was that you know, there's so much research and writing on first generation students in their undergraduate experiences and of course, I relied a lot on that during my undergrad and then when I got to graduate school, like I would literally open Google and be like graduate students who are first generation and like just like see if there was anything, and it was just it's so dry, there's nothing.
Speaker 2:There's nothing on graduate students who are first generation, and so there was no like words I could put to my experience like other than like the obvious, like finance. You know, the financial stuff is always like easy to explain because it's like A to B, but the kind of social, the cultural changes that were happening that I was experiencing, like yeah, there was nothing. So journaling really I think helped me kind of articulate and yeah, just articulate like all of those experiences on paper where I was like okay, cool, I'm not crazy, Like I actually do have like these thoughts are coming from a specific place and they're real, they're not just, like you know me being frustrated at everything for no reason. So, yeah, it helped a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And even when you look back and you're like, well, you know it wasn't that bad, yeah, exactly, it was pretty good, you can look back and say, no, no, it was that bad and it was that hard and you know, I did go through something. I should pat myself on the back because, like I've succeeded.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Like that was, I think, at the time. Looking back now I'm like, oh, this is great writing material. But like at the time when I was actually doing the journaling, I was like, oh no, I don't want to forget any of this, like I don't want to let like the harshness of this experience like be doled down over time, so I need to write it down. I need to write it down and yeah, so that definitely worked out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it's interesting, as you were talking about both your undergrad and graduate experience, one of the things that I kept thinking about, and you actually said this, so it's not like I'm coming up with something brilliant off the out of thin air, but it's not about the doing. It's about the being. It's. I can do the work, I can understand the concept, I can write a research paper, like I know how to do that from grads, from undergrad going to grad school, but just being like who I am at the core is different from others, and then how do I sort of make the space and find my place in that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it seems to me like that's the thread that's run through this and even through your article. So Inside Higher Ed is where you'll find the article and I'll link to it in the show notes. And the article was called a guide for first generation working class grad students. So tell me what made you decide to write and then send it off to submit it.
Speaker 2:Well, I knew I wanted to like write something public facing and like an informal tone. I wanted to write for, like, my people. Like I didn't want to like come up. I didn't want it to be some like academic journal article that blocks behind a paywall. Like I wanted it to be something that, like anybody could read, because they are now me in the situation who is like typing into Google like graduate students and how to get through the first year. So I'm hoping that, like the computer machine wizard will do whatever it does and like pull up my article when those students are searching through.
Speaker 2:But that was the motivation for, you know, publishing it in Inside Higher Ed, because I had been like assigned articles from Inside Higher Ed in my undergrad. I was like, ok, I know that like students read this, so that was important to me. And then, you know, I was kind of a little bit challenged with the idea of like. So I'm only talking about this this first year. How much advice do I really have? You know how much. How much reliability do I really have to be giving advice at this stage in my career? And it's like one. You know, I do try to stray away from just being like you have to do this, this and this. You know more. Just share my experiences and also the context that I'm aware of a first generation student, so there's like some data in there as well. But but the other thing was just like who better to like talk about the first year of graduate school than like a first year graduate student, you know?
Speaker 1:right, so I've been through it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I had, of course I've I've read, you know, articles from faculty at various institutions talking about, like, how to get through your first year as a graduate student. Like, of course I had read all of these things, but they just like, oh, didn't quite do it for me. It was like, yeah, I mean, I know I'm supposed to, you know, reach out to my professors often and and try to, you know, collaborate, like all of these things I know is just like the other stuff, the other stuff I need like information on. And so I think that's where, like the experience as a graduate student who literally just did this, like just came out of this experience, is really beneficial and I hope, I hope it's beneficial for other students reading it or or people you know who even are in their careers now, who, yeah, who can benefit from it and who had that experience as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean I I read it from the point of view of somebody who works with undergraduate students, who wants to be able to support them to go to grad school and prepare them if they choose to go to grad school, and so you know it reached, even though it's targeted towards grad students, it certainly reached multiple audiences.
Speaker 1:I would say yeah. So let's dive into that article a little bit and I encourage, I encourage you to read it. But let's dive into it a little bit and talk about your, your tips to survive and thrive that you came up with, and there were three C's community consciousness raising and claiming space. So share with, share with with me and with you who are listening. What, why did you come up with those three? And you know how, what advice did you give in that article? And what would you add now that maybe you didn't get to write because you were worried about word count?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the word count was I think I cut about half of the article and I'm like not even joking when I say that.
Speaker 1:So now you get to hear the other half.
Speaker 2:So we get the whole.
Speaker 1:Thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'm. So. First I should just say like I'm not creative at all when it comes to like titles and like naming things. So like the three C's, I was like, oh, I'm on roll, like this is great, this is.
Speaker 2:But I really just like when I sat down to write it, obviously like I wrote the first part but then I needed like takeaways and I'm like, oh God, this is where the, the advice part comes in, and I had all these insecurities about like giving advice and so I just thought like literally, how did I get through it? Like just what? Like I needed to do a little replay of the whole past, you know, first year in my head, and what did I do? Like what did I rely on? What was you know, my, how did I get through it?
Speaker 2:And that's kind of where obviously they weren't like originally, like I didn't name them that. But the three C's are what the phenomenon were, that I, you know, like experienced and underwent to get to the second year and not quit my first year. So community obviously is huge and I think that, like you read anything on anything difficult in any human life, and it's like community and we're, you know, I mean we're in such an individualistic world. But we're definitely in such an individualistic society and so, especially when you get into the academy and it's like you know, publisher parish and a lot of graduate students don't receive the same stipends as each other. You know, we don't all have equal funding.
Speaker 2:I'm really thankful at my institution we do but so there's all these like roadblocks and obstacles in this graduate school experience. That is kind of like really trying to pull you away from other people. It's trying to like tell you, like you need to, like you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you need to just succeed, climb to the top of the mountain by yourself, like, if you want to, you need to go get it and, like you know, you'll be the victor, You'll be out on top in the end. And it's just like that's not reality, like that's just not how it works.
Speaker 1:For anyone. It's never about you, just do it on your own and it's just you.
Speaker 2:Exactly and especially not like in my experience, because it's like you know, I just I just said all the people who like helped me get to where I was. So that's not going to just like stop here. So I really relied on community and that's like hard and kind of sounds like not hypocritical, but like it doesn't make a lot of sense when you're in a space where you don't feel like there is a lot of community for you. So for me and I'm like a hardcore introvert too so like I wasn't about to be going out yeah, I wasn't about to be going out every single weekend and trying to like make friends with everyone on campus and like all of that's like it just wasn't. And you know you're adjusting to a new place Like just no, it's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:But what I did rely on a lot was like there were a few graduate students in my program that I did get close with and I think that that was important.
Speaker 2:But it was also important that I like maintain ties with my friends back home, like my friends who were in McNair with me and you know, even one of them was is going through a master's degree program right now, and so we're still kind of having similar experiences as we move through graduate school.
Speaker 2:And even my friends who didn't go to graduate school Like it's really grounding to be able to like still rely on your community, even if you're 2000 miles away from them, in my case.
Speaker 2:And then the other form of community actually I would say it's kind of twofold is the community who's kind of in the middle where they understand that experience, but maybe they're not, you know, they're not in your program with you, and so, like my undergrad mentor, she has been like so incredibly important and vital, obviously not only to my success in undergrad but like in graduate school now too. And so there's that. And then there's the reading like being able to connect with like authors and, because I'm an introvert, of course, like that's super, super easy for me to do, being able to connect with like people whose books I've read and like who have spoken on things like this, that like would resonate with me and the experiences that I was having. So those are all different forms of community that I think that any student like no matter like where, can kind of engage in and it doesn't have to look like, you know, having like a big group of like. It's not the stereotypical kind of community that you think of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, here's a question just popped into my head. Does studying sociology give you kind of like a leg up on why community is so important? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yes, it does, and I would say in my experience, no, it gives me a leg up on a lot of other things, right?
Speaker 2:Because as sociologists kind of what we're trained as like, one of the main things that we study is like social interactions and social groups and how most of the world around us, yeah, and how most of the world around us is socially constructed in some way, and so all of that, I feel like, does give me a lot of a leg up, as like you know, like looking at these things, but in terms of like understanding community.
Speaker 2:That's not where I learned the importance of community. That is something that I learned from my personal background as a working class person of like you know, we're not in the silo play, it's I don't know. It's the experience of like, when you need help, like there's gonna be people around there to help you, because this is a mutually beneficial community that you're in when you're growing up of like there's always somebody right there. You know a million family members, a million. You know your neighbors and the whole block and everybody, and so that kind of communal experience is like, I think, is what sets the foundation for that knowing in graduate school, even if I'm in a sociology department.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, couldn't help but ask cause, just like hmm, you know talking about the individual and the individualistic society that we're in, but then also knowing that community is so important and surrounding ourselves with people who can lift us up and, you know, pick us up at the same time. So, yeah, yeah, nice, nice, yeah, I think. Community and finding people who will be there with you. I think I read one article that said that if you can find, like, what sort of lights you up and that you're excited about every day, and if you have one person in your life that has your back, you know, and specifically for college students, and probably the same is true for graduate students then you will find a way to survive and thrive. If you have those two things and I'm like, you know, that's a really that's a very sort of simplified way of looking at it, but I think for a lot of students, especially the, you know, first gen students, that's a really good piece of advice, cause it's not overwhelming.
Speaker 2:I completely agree, because I can think of times where I didn't feel as much support and that didn't work out. And then there's times when I've had a lot of support but like I wasn't doing things that I wanted to do and so it was like you know. But I think that, yeah, it's super important. And that's another thing to mention too is just like if you're considering graduate school, like consider, you have to consider your why and like are you going into something that you really wanna do because you know I'm not at the back end of that yet, so I can't confirm for sure, but I have had a lot of mentors say you know you have to do it because you want to and because you have a reason and a passion or a something, some kind of spark, some kind of fire for it. Because if you're going just for the title for the degree, like it's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, phd programs. I mean, you're just so immersed in the subject and the literature that you know you need to love it because you're deep diving into all of that. So yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Then let's talk too about consciousness raising. Cause that to me, you know. I think, like you said, a lot of people will talk about how community is important, but consciousness raising maybe not so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not as talked about, and I also think that it's like a little bit more abstract to think about, like you know, like conscious, like what do you mean? Like I'm awake, I'm like looking around, what do you mean? But I think that it so. This is where I feel like it gets a little bit harder to, you know, talk about this in like an education way. This is where I rely a lot more on. When I was an undergrad, I was in, you know, gender and ethnic studies and so, like this is where I rely a lot more on, like feminist theory and all of these, you know, all of these tools that I was kind of trained with as an undergrad to look at the world around me and be like hmm, hmm and so and of course that was like the hardest part of the article to like shave down, because I was like no, this is essential, like I need to mention this, and then the editors were like no, no, no, no, no. But the editors were great, but I think I will definitely need to write like another article later on about that.
Speaker 2:But this idea of consciousness raising, I think is really rooted in the knowing that One thing is not like the other. You know, from an experiential standpoint, like from going through graduate school, the first year of graduate school myself, and being like huh, I feel like I don't belong here and, like you said, the doing and the being are different. Like I can write essays, I can do research to my heart's content and I have no, I'm fully confident that I can do all of those things. It's the in-between stuff, it's the like lifeblood running through the academy, kind of stuff that is just like so much more difficult. And so I think a consciousness raising journey or experience is when you have that realization, and a lot of people do have that realization. But then it's about like, okay, what are the? You have to realize that it's not just a personal experience. Like what are the systems, what are the structures in place that have made my experience the way that it is? And you can talk about this at a higher ed level. You could talk about this at a bunch of like way more macro levels. Like we have a system of severe inequality in this country and that doesn't just go away. When you go into education, you know there's like the saying, like education is a great equalizer, but that's been heavily problematized, especially in, you know, higher education and then also in my discipline in sociology as well. So that's, I think, like what the path of consciousness raising is, and for me, thankfully, having gone through undergrad and having wonderful, wonderful, wonderful teachers, I was equipped with a lot of scholarship and knowledge, and that's not even from, like an academic standpoint of like this is how this is another way of looking at the world that is very at odds, I would say, with the structure of the academy, but it is very healing and it feels very liberating to have that way of looking at the world and thinking. No, I think I'm going to do it this way instead.
Speaker 2:So one of my main research interests is black feminist thought, and I rely a lot on black feminist thought, not only in, like my own research agenda but in the way that I like walk through the world. And so black feminist thought is this really long, very old tradition of knowledge is oppressed knowledge is black women talking about their experiences for other black women. That is so just beautiful and empowering, and I read it as a white woman. I'm a white woman, and I read it and I say, oh my God, like, yes, like I see, like this. This helps me too, and so it's really it's just really really powerful to read those kinds of things. I read a lot of bell hooks. I think it at this point in while you're listening to the podcast, like, if you're like so lost right now on the consciousness raising thing, bell hooks, teaching to transgress I link it in the article is a must read. Like you, you have to read it, especially if you're a working class student, graduate school.
Speaker 2:But she's kind of one of the like seminal authors in this kind of black feminist canon, especially as it relates to education.
Speaker 2:Because she talked a lot about her education but talking about like working class lives and understanding that the system of higher education was initially structured as like, like essentially like finishing school for the, for the elite, and so if that's how it started and everything just grew from there, then like, how do we fit into that? Like, where do black women fit into that? Where do just all women fit into that? Where do working class people fit into that? Like, like, who, who is this for? And so it's it's at this end of the consciousness raising journey like you start learning how to be strategic about your identity and how you're studying and in my field, sociology, it's like we study predominantly inequality, and so it's like how do you be strategic about your own knowledges, even if they're you know different from most other people in the academy? How do you be strategic with those knowledges to then like, do something that matters, do research that matters, or do work that matters, if you're not going into an academic space in the long term? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you, how do you do what matters? And it's also how do you bring your voice into it so that others can learn from you. Yeah, I thought I really enjoyed that section. I haven't read Bell Hook's book yet, but it's on my, it's like on my Kindle, just waiting, so it's so good.
Speaker 2:It's so good. I I don't even have it's like hard to even articulate, like the word I just yeah, yeah, if you like know me, if everyone who knows me in like an academic space, like I talk about this book all the time, I just feel like it's like step one. So, yeah, yes, everyone.
Speaker 1:And you hand it out to us Christmas gifts and you know literally you need to read this book. Don't come back to me after you read it. We'll have a discussion so yeah, exactly. I love it, I love it. Well, thank you for that. And then your final one was claiming space, which I really appreciate. I think they, I think the consciousness raising in the claiming space go together. They do, you know, obviously very, very nicely. So talk about why you want students like you you know grad working class, first gen to claim space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, okay. So step one is just find some people to be in community with. Then step two is you know, do your consciousness raising word. Do you know read the history of you know what higher education is, who it's for? You know read people who inspire you and help you kind of navigate. You know, understand the world around you. And then, once you're done doing that, then you go into your, your classes, to your, your research lab, to your wherever, and you claim space.
Speaker 2:And this one, I would say, out of the other two, is the one that I am. This is very much still like a work in progress for me and like what that means exactly. But I think claiming space it's not just about like being like the most talkative person in your, in your courses, or like having the most to contribute during like research meetings and things like that, but like first practicing within yourself like I deserve to be here. This space may not have been made for me, you know, it might not be like the place that, like I was expected to be, but like I deserve to be here. So, like the internal affirmations and and the journal, like the journaling for me, I think, is a way of claiming space because it's it's the, the audacity of not letting my experiences like be hushed and muted and like forgotten about because that year is over. So like that's like an internal way of claiming space and that can happen, like nobody has to see that happen, like. So like you know, I mean I think that like as grad, like just graduate students in general, we have kind of like a precarious position in the academy, you might say, and so we don't have a lot of like. We, I would say we have a lot of like individual power, we have a lot of collective power as like a bunch of individuals coming together as graduate students, but we don't, like we don't get to make the rules about, like you know, the intricacies of how our program works or like how much money we make. We don't get any of those decisions. So the internal kind of claiming space is the thing that we can all do and nobody has to see that happen, right.
Speaker 2:But then I think the outward claiming space you have to be a lot more strategic about. Obviously, if you're like, you know what I think this is, you know this is inequality and I am not going to do this and it's like it's not going to work out for you. I'm sorry it just won't, because, you know, because that's the space that we're in. But being strategic about like making you know, like finding mentors and people in your institution who are you know, who really do support you and who kind of, if not knowing what your experience is like, will listen to you and you feel like do care. And then I think the other strategic part about that is, you know, helping yourself first and helping people in your community first too, because we're in a weird place where, like institutions are so like, excited to be like oh, oh, yes, we have a huge first generation population. Look at all the things that we're doing for, like, hispanic students on our campus, look at all the.
Speaker 2:But then once we, the people who they're like recruiting and, like you know, advertising about, get onto those campuses, it's like, okay, cool, like where's the spaces? And they're like, oh, no, no, like that was, you know that was just for the marketing email, like what do you mean so? So you, I mean like recognizing that and being like, okay, I'm, you know, a lot of campuses are really like the, the undergrad institution that I came from, like we had a huge first generation population and we had a first generation student center, like a literal, like huge area on campus, but not all places have that. And so it's about being strategic with yourself, of being like okay, you know they want me for this thing, you know, and, and I can do that, I can provide, I can be a great research assistant, I can, you know, do all the things I can.
Speaker 2:Like you know I can do all that stuff, but I need to be getting something out of this too, like people like me be getting something out of this too. So being very, very intentional with, with the opportunities you're taking the labor that you agree to put on yourself. You know everyone's always going to be asking do you want to do this thing for me? Do you want to throw this workshop and this? And that has to be like you have to be intentional about like, do I want to do this? Like should I? Would this be best? And so that's. It's like a weird.
Speaker 2:You know, by saying no, you're actually claiming more space, but like I think that those are all things that count under the claiming space kind of umbrella of being like your own, you know, being able to stand on your own two feet and say like yes and no, and this is my decision, and and all that stuff. So that's definitely still a work in progress for me. But, you know, check back in in three years and we'll see how it's going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I might just do that. You know, it actually seems to me that writing this article was a way you claim space.
Speaker 2:I think so, I think so. I think it's kind of like it was kind of like a little player of like, well, first of all, like I'm claiming this space right here, but also is a player to like, hopefully, other students around the country and even maybe outside of the country, of being like, Okay, your turn, Like here we go, let's do it, let's let's you know, like build this kind of network. So so, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love it. I again. If you haven't read the article, I highly recommend it. And inside higher ed you can probably just Google Lauren Harvey inside higher ed and it will pop up Again. I'll put it in the show notes Lauren. Thank you so much for for all of this. Is there any final advice you'd want to give to the folks who are working in higher ed about how to support students like you who are coming in? Things that we can do.
Speaker 2:Yes. Well, I would say, beyond the obvious pay, graduate students, living wage I would also, I mean, I think it's hard. It's hard for faculty. I'm not a faculty, so there's another side of this experience that you aren't hearing right now, but it's it's hard, especially if you yourself are a first generation or working class. You know faculty members, staff member, because being honest and being open and vulnerable about about that experience is is I mean to be honest like it's still not something necessarily that is like super, super empowering and like that you know all, like all these identities.
Speaker 2:So sometimes you know people might not feel safe necessarily revealing that about themselves, but if you know of like students who are open about this themselves, like maybe vocalizing that to them, like knowing that the visibility is so important, like as much as like our institutions, like hyper visibleize us, it's also we're like very invisible, like in the day to day, because like you could walk around and just be like yeah, nobody here gets me, and it's like that's not true. There are people, but like not everyone's like vocal about their experiences or it's not visible, especially for places that don't have like spaces, like institutional spaces on campus for first generation people. So I think that that's a big one, like on the individual level of like, just like faculty who have those experiences, or staff members who have those experiences, or even who don't have those experiences of being like, hey, I see you, I see that your set of experiences, or that your background, that you're, you know that you're coming from a community that feels like can sometimes be at odds with this place, like I want to support you, help you. So, yeah, just like the individual support. And then I also think that like and I think this just goes for graduate students in general, but like listening to students, we very much know we're not the experts and you know it's always impressed upon us that we're not the experts because we're here to learn and we're here to like become the experts and things like that. But we are experts in our own experiences and so I think that you know a lot of times and again, this is all in service of that like you've got to go through tough things, you got to harden in order to like be the best researcher you can be.
Speaker 2:I don't think that's always the most productive thing and I don't know, maybe that's just like me being a product of my generation, but I just don't think that, like you know the hardness and like struggle should be a prerequisite yeah, a prerequisite to you know success. And so listening to students and they're like, you know this is, you know, this is different. This is something that, like, is weighing on me heavily, like emotionally, you know whatever, because, because Gratvins do uproot their lives to come and you know, work for institutions, for faculty members, for three, four, five, six, seven, eight years, like so. So I think listening to students about their experiences and you know what they need is also very important.
Speaker 2:You know we don't there's a lot that we don't see, a lot of like you know, bureaucratic, kind of behind the scenes, you know, behind the curtain, stuff that goes on, yes, in these departments, and stuff that we don't see. And we don't necessarily, of course, we don't understand those things necessarily, but I think that like there's a level of kind of humanity and like reciprocity that we need to foster a little bit better in academia, of like understanding that like, like it's tough for all of us here, it's tough for all of us. It's not just, you know, the faculty who are working their butts off to like support students, it's not just the students themselves. And so the listening component and the kind of compassion has to be, it has to be there, otherwise it's not, you know, super healthy, a healthy space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, I agree with that 100%, and I think it's also true that for the year, three C's, I think they're they're always changing right, because you're always raising your consciousness to a next level. You're all. You're claiming space in new places, yeah, as you're going through and you're just continuing to build community.
Speaker 1:So it's a constant learning and cycle of things that you're going through as a grad student and and if you don't have that sort of compassionate you know mentor or faculty or staff person or friends, you know peers to turn to it. Just yeah, it just makes it much more of a struggle when it doesn't need to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that just made me think of another thing.
Speaker 2:Like I think it's I'm at, I'm at this kind of level in my development, but then I get to see, like graduate students who have been in the program for a few years more than me and I can like think of several right now that I'm like you know, like I want to do what they're doing. I want to be at a place where they're at like there's, there's just so having like that look up to of not just like material success, of like oh my gosh, they've published this many articles or they've done this, this, this but of like a like a developmental, kind of like consciousness level, where it's like like it's so nice to see people who are so like committed to self growth and like internal psychological kind of growth, not just like material success, and so that kind of like is a reminder to like stay strong and like just keep doing the internal work that you need to do to just be a better, a better you, not a better student or a better professional or whatever, but like a better you. So yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:well, I really appreciated this conversation. Thank you so much for for agreeing to be on the podcast. If, if a listener wants to get in touch with you, how can they contact you?
Speaker 2:So I'm on LinkedIn. I still don't know how to work that robot. I assume if you just type in Lauren Harvey Rice University, I should pop up. So definitely LinkedIn, and then my, my, also my email. My email inbox is always open. I I like emailing about not meeting things and not, like you know, work, activity, things.
Speaker 2:So if anyone wants, emails basically, yeah, conversational emails. If anyone wants to email me, that'd be great as well, and my email is LH52 at riceedu. So, and yeah, you can. You can look me up that way as well.
Speaker 1:I'll put that and your LinkedIn in the show notes. I'll put those links in. I'll put a link to the bell hooks and the article in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everyone will be reading bell hooks now and thank you. And for anyone who wants to reach out to me, if you'd like to be on the podcast or you have questions or you have an idea for a topic, you can find me at firstgenfmcom or you can email me at gen that's J-E-N at firstgenfmcom and I'd love to hear from you and get feedback. Also, if you do me a favor and rate and review this podcast and hopefully give me a five star review, give Lauren a five star review at least, because she was fabulous to talk to. I would love to have you do that because it helps other folks who are working with first gen students, either in high school or college, find the podcast. So thank you for joining me, lauren, and thank you for listening and I will see you again next week. Or I would say I'll see you again because I feel like I'm talking with you, like you're right here. Yeah, we'll talk with you again next week. Thanks, thank you.