First-Gen College Graduate Inspiring And Helping Other First-Gens

By Davaghnia Wilson | Published March 24, 2022

From being homeless to becoming a college graduate, an attorney, a retired municipal judge, and now assistant vice president for Student Retention and Educational Innovation at Kean University, Marvin Adames has experienced it all.

 “I’m in this position now, I’m gonna kind of oversee it and I find that there’s a particular beauty in having somebody oversee it that’s lived it,” Adames said.

Adames, of Puerto Rican descent, explained that he faced many challenges growing up, including language barriers and racial discrimination. He was raised in a single-parent migrant household in an impoverished area in Newark, N.J. where crime and incarceration were the norms.

Financial insecurity, food insecurity, and housing insecurity are some of the challenges these families face in addition to obtaining a high-quality college education.

“We had very humble beginnings. A couple of times, you know, unfortunately, we were evicted. We were homeless, kind of staying with friends and family until we had some stability,” Adames said.

Adames said that he was constantly told that anything is possible through education. All he had to do was stay focused on that, and if he did well in school, he would be able to lift himself and his family out of poverty.

The thought of attending college seemed so far-fetched because he knew his mother couldn’t afford it and when he reached out to his father, he said he couldn’t assist him.

As a high school sophomore, he decided that he would join the military and go on the G.I. Bill to pay for college. It wasn’t until he learned that he could acquire an academic scholarship by being ranked number one or number two in his graduating class, that his focus shifted.

“Once I learned about the possibility of going to college via an academic scholarship and all I had to do was be number one or number two in my high school class, that meant I had to really really focus. At that particular time, my life completely changed,” Adames said.

He was eager to learn and eager to succeed. He constantly reminded himself that to be the best, to be number one, he had to stay focused and work hard. He graduated high school as a salutatorian and received academic scholarships from multiple universities. He decided to attend The College of New Jersey.

“I had a very supportive environment that caused me to succeed. I was able to get out of school in four years, I got into law school and I went to law school right after college which was really amazing for someone in my situation,” Adames said.

Adames explained that being a first-gen was more difficult in law school. In undergrad, he had the support of his advisors and peer mentors to see him through. While attending Rutgers Law School – Newark, he had to figure it out on his own.

Kean University, one of the most affordable universities in the state of New Jersey, is home to many ambitious first-gen students and some faced a similar upbringing as Adames.

Associate Vice President for University Relations Margaret McCorry said, “6885, or 42%, of the students who graduated from Kean USA in the past five fiscal years, identified themselves as first-generation in college.”

Here at Kean, first-gen students are not alone. When he was given the opportunity to work at Kean assisting first-gen students, and seeing them through college, Adames jumped at the opportunity.

Adames said that his biggest concern is getting the first-gen students at Kean engaged and being a part of a family. He wants the students to accept what his office has to offer and invest in the program just as they are being invested in and provide an innovative and dynamic college experience for students at Kean.

“I particularly have an interest in those students that come from situations like myself. First-year students that have difficulties because those students need to understand that we have resources and we have individuals like myself that know these pains and will talk with them, be here for them, walk with them, you know, along the way to assist them,” Adames said.

The Office of Student Retention and Educational Innovation was created by university President Dr. Lamont O. Repollet Ed.D, who is himself a first-gen. First-generation students are defined as students whose parents do not hold college degrees.

The office works directly with first-gen students and provides several programs and workshops to assist them. One of their biggest programs is the First Gen Scholars Mentorship Program.

The office partnered with the Kean Foundation to identify alumni that were interested in the First Gen Scholars Mentorship Program and interested in mentoring first-gen students. The students for the program were selected during their freshman year at Kean.

An email was sent out to the student body and those who identified as first-gen students were contacted about the program and those who wished to join the program were admitted.

This mentorship program connects the students to peer mentors and Kean alumni who share similar interests so they can be guided by someone who has walked the path that they are currently on.

They are encouraged to build connections, share stories, experiences and assist them through college. The one-on-one mentorship program provides a lifelong mentorship that students have access to even after they graduate.

Jamaica native Peta-Gaye Scott, a first-gen junior majoring in Criminal Justice said that she had anxiety when she was starting college because she had no one in her family that could tell her the ins and outs of what to do and what not to do while in college. She applied to Seton Hall University and was accepted but could not attend because of the cost of tuition.

“Attending college is very expensive, so for me, when I was choosing what college I wanted to attend I had to take into consideration how much money that would cost for me to go. Because of the financial insecurity that I had, I had to choose one that is affordable and wouldn’t make my parents go broke,” Scott said.

Scott hopes to work in the prison system and eventually go to law school to become a family lawyer.

She explained that she takes pride in the fact that she is the first in her family to attend college, she was gifted the opportunity to attend an affordable university and though she hasn’t faced many challenges being a first-gen student, she is proud that her parents had dreams of higher education for her and that she gets to make the best out of it and live her dream.

“I can say that someone in my family has a college degree and it is me,” Scott said.

Adames is extremely proud of his achievements and his growth. A young man from the projects became a college graduate and has succeeded in all his endeavors. He is proud that he can provide for his children and his family and that they don’t have to face the struggles that he faced growing up.

Adames recalls living in an apartment in Elizabeth while attending law school. He explained that he would stay at the computer lab until it closed at midnight just so he could get his assignments done as he couldn’t afford a computer. He would get home at around 2 a.m. every day and had to wake up super early to get back to the computer lab at 8 a.m. to continue working on his assignments.

Often he wouldn’t have food throughout the entire day while at school. There were times when he didn’t have the means to get to class because his budget was so limited. One semester, he had to make the decision that he would not go to school one day out of the week just so he could have enough to get to the end of the semester. That day was every Thursday.

“I wanted to succeed, I was hungry in that other way. I was not only physically hungry but I was hungry to grow and develop and so, as a first-gen student in law school, it was very very difficult,” Adames said. “For me, it’s like very painful because I was eager to learn I wanted it but I couldn’t. I couldn’t get there. My mother couldn’t give me the money, my father didn’t give me any money. I just didn’t know where else to turn but I continued, I continued to push, I continued through it all.”

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