The office of Financial Counseling and Student Services has been in the process of creating the First Generation Student Success Program and is holding an interest meeting from 2-3 p.m. on Nov. 8 in COBA 217. 

The First Generation Student Success Program is focused primarily around professional development and overall mentorship of first generation students. The Financial Counseling and Student Services office has been advertising this event through emails and tabling in the campus center. 

Rebekah Reyes, associate director of financial counseling and student services, said she is excited about spreading information about the usefulness and wide reach of this program.

“Overall, I think the students are becoming a lot more educated about the resources that are available to them which is kind of the whole purpose. It’s one of those things you shouldn’t be ashamed of; there shouldn’t be a stigma. Everyone starts somewhere right?,” Reyes said. “Hopefully that is one of the things that is happening is people realizing this is a great thing, it’s a great thing to be a first generation college student.” 

Stephanie Tran, freshman biochemistry major from Keller, is a first generation student who heard of the new program and interest meeting.

“I’ve gotten a couple of emails about it and I think it’s a super helpful thing especially because some first generation students don’t know what they’re doing sometimes,” Tran said. “College stuff is real and I feel like this is a good resource for people to use.”

Jared Beltran, freshman engineering major from El Paso, is also a first generation and plans on attending the interest meeting. Beltran said he agrees that this resource is extremely helpful especially in its focus on mentorship.

“I’d say that with figuring out what to do and how to do it, mentorship would be a great help especially since my parents nor anyone in my family have gone through college, there was really no one to guide me so I was really asking ‘What do I do? Help,’” Beltran said. 

Though this program is starting to ramp up now with meetings and advertising, Tran said that the program may aid in students decision making on choosing a college. 

“Personally, I didn’t really look at this program, I looked more for my department. However, in the future, I think this will be good because if two schools have the same department programs but ACU offers this also then it would probably be an extra factor that would help,” Tran said. 

Reyes said she encourages Students with questions to attend the interest meeting or contact the Wildcat Central office. 

“We’re here for you all, everybody should feel like this is a place you can come to, “ Reyes said. “There is no such thing as a dumb question because  we hear something new everyday and we’ll figure it out for you.”