Personal Narrative: Life After High School

When starting high school there were many unknowns, due to the fact my parents were immigrants and did not know about the education system. Creating my high school schedule, I would have to ask my friends and they would help me based on what their siblings had done. I did not always feel confident relying on my friend’s siblings, so during high school, I researched to understand my opportunities. It was confusing to hear my friends say “my mom is making me take this class, “because I never had that source of advice. My junior year I realized that there was no guidance at all at my school. There was no one saying “take this, do that”. This is a significant problem for first-generation students that had no source of guidance from school or at home. My junior year, along with another student and a teacher as a sponsor, I pioneered a Parent Night in Spanish. This was an audience, that prior to this was never addressed. …show more content…
One challenge of having this night was getting counselors to realize the importance of having it. We wanted to send out an automated call to all parents; however, every time my sponsor would ask for it to be sent, we would be told it would be sent “that night” and it never actually happened. Another challenge was condensing all of the information into one night, which was very overwhelming to both students and parents alike, that previously did not know about any of this. Another aspect that was very difficult to manage was explaining the information to parents in front of their students. Specifically, one parent asked me if a C was a good grade because her daughter had told it was good, but in the presentation, it was not seen as good. I explained to her that a C was barely passing, and therefore not competitive if her daughter wanted to attend college. It was difficult to explain because her daughter was right there claiming it was good and it felt like I was doing something wrong by exposing her out to her