JJ GLOBAL WORLD

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Inspiration

What it does

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

Accomplishments that we're proud of

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What's next for JJ GLOBAL WORLD

One of the biggest challenges I have faced as a first-generation college student has been feelings of inferiority.

"I am stupid. I have nothing to offer. Everyone is so much smarter than me." When I first came here, that is what I would think every day.

I went to a regular public high school in the suburbs. My school had difficulty with funding. Because of this, they did not offer certain Advanced Placement classes and would cut others. My school did not offer AP Computer Science, Psychology, Art History, Macroecomonics, or European History. In alternating years, they offered AP Biology and AP Chemistry. When the Chinese teacher retired, they just stopped teaching it. In order to study Japanese or Arabic, I would have had to take a non-credit after school class that was only offered for one semester and cost $50. They couldn't offer these languages as real classes, let alone advanced ones.

This isn't to say that I went to a bad school. If I had, I might not be here. I went to a pretty good school (compared to other high schools across the country) that could not offer me as many opportunities as I would have liked, and I would argue did not entirely prepare me for college.

Then, suddenly, I was attending college with people who had gone to prep schools. Suddenly I was sitting next to students who were fluent in multiple languages, could play instruments, had traveled the world, and didn't need to work or worry about student loan debt when they graduate. None of this was because they were inherently smarter than me; it was because they had more money.

But it took me a long time to realize that. It took me a long time to realize that I am intelligent, it's not an accident that I'm here, I have things to contribute. It took me a long time to realize that I deserve to be here.

I guess then that the hardest part is feeling "less-than," as though somehow you're less intelligent, like the admissions committee made a mistake. The other hard part is realizing that some of the students around you have more opportunities than you do, more skills and abilities, not because they're smarter, but because money can buy education. Money can buy connections. Money can buy opportunities. And if you don't have money, you really do have to work twice as hard.

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