I grew up in a working class family and am the first person in my family to complete university. My parents put a lot of emphasis on my education because they held it up as being a way to have better career prospects than they did. They spent more than they could afford on sending me to a private school. But they didn’t have the skills or education to help me with my studies so I struggled a lot compared to my peers. Being the working class kid at a school with wealthy kids who had more support and resources than I did made it difficult for me to understand why everything felt so much harder for me. Undiagnosed adhd and Autism also didn’t help this. Now I’m doing a PhD and it’s strange how familiar the feeling of being a first gen academic is to being the poor kid at a rich school.
Yep. Similar, not exactly the same but dad went to a technical school and entered into a trade of sorts, and mum dropped out due to moving a lot and education being different (like she’d learn things she already knew but then didn’t learn stuff that the other kids knew). And education was really important to them, especially because I struggled a lot. I got diagnosed with auditory processing disorder at like 10 but lived with undiagnosed ADHD until like two years ago or so.
But I went to public school for all of my years. Ended up having to go to Tafe for a few years until I was a mature student (didn’t get the atar I needed) and got into uni with the degree I wanted. And now I’m the first person in my family to have a uni degree. And while it’s great that I could still go and not worry about paying everything up front, it’s still going to worry me for when or if I have to eventually pay off that debt.
Especially since I want to get a master’s in my field of learning (and eventual PhD but that’s because hardly anywhere recognises Mx as a title). But yeah it’s tough.
As a phd student I strongly advice anyone to think very carefully about doing a phd unless you already come from a wealthy position in life. In fact I would actually try to convince someone not to do a PhD. The title means fuck all outside of academia and even if it did that it not a good reason to pursue one.
I grew up in a working class family and am the first person in my family to complete university. My parents put a lot of emphasis on my education because they held it up as being a way to have better career prospects than they did. They spent more than they could afford on sending me to a private school. But they didn’t have the skills or education to help me with my studies so I struggled a lot compared to my peers. Being the working class kid at a school with wealthy kids who had more support and resources than I did made it difficult for me to understand why everything felt so much harder for me. Undiagnosed adhd and Autism also didn’t help this. Now I’m doing a PhD and it’s strange how familiar the feeling of being a first gen academic is to being the poor kid at a rich school.
Yep. Similar, not exactly the same but dad went to a technical school and entered into a trade of sorts, and mum dropped out due to moving a lot and education being different (like she’d learn things she already knew but then didn’t learn stuff that the other kids knew). And education was really important to them, especially because I struggled a lot. I got diagnosed with auditory processing disorder at like 10 but lived with undiagnosed ADHD until like two years ago or so.
But I went to public school for all of my years. Ended up having to go to Tafe for a few years until I was a mature student (didn’t get the atar I needed) and got into uni with the degree I wanted. And now I’m the first person in my family to have a uni degree. And while it’s great that I could still go and not worry about paying everything up front, it’s still going to worry me for when or if I have to eventually pay off that debt.
Especially since I want to get a master’s in my field of learning (and eventual PhD but that’s because hardly anywhere recognises Mx as a title). But yeah it’s tough.
As a phd student I strongly advice anyone to think very carefully about doing a phd unless you already come from a wealthy position in life. In fact I would actually try to convince someone not to do a PhD. The title means fuck all outside of academia and even if it did that it not a good reason to pursue one.