The difference work ethic can make

When I was 17 and preparing for a college admissions interview my dad and I were bouncing ideas back and forth when he suggested that I be forthcoming in my interview that academic achievement doesn't come as easily to me as it does to some. He said that my accomplishments were a result of the tremendous effort I had put into school. At the time I took this comment as a slight on my ability, but I have come to see the value and truth in what he said.

The middle school I attended was located in a wealthy part of the town; I did not live in that upscale area, and got a spot through the school's "lottery" system. Before I realized just how hard I had to work to succeed academically, my grades fell somewhere close to the 50th percentile of my peers. I got mostly B's and some A's. The grades didn't matter much to me until, one day, there was a school-wide ceremony celebrating different honor roll distinctions became a wake-up call. 

All of my (admittedly nerdy) friends received the "Gold Honor Roll" distinction. But not me. As ridiculous, vain, and snooty as it might sound, I remember being called up to receive my "Silver Honor Roll" certificate and looking left and right to my peers, and thinking "is this who I want to be?" I felt embarrassed. It was at that moment that I decided I was going to do whatever it took to be going up with the "Gold" group the next trimester.

I started participating in after-school study groups, took on extracurricular activities that bolstered my understanding of class material, and spent more time learning the material on my own. With a lot of extra hours, I did get the "Gold" distinction the following trimester... and every trimester after that.

This work ethic persisted throughout the remainder of middle school and high school, though I still felt ashamed that things didn't come as easy to me as they did to my wealthy peers. With a tremendous amount of effort, I finished ranked 11th in my high school graduating class (just shy of top 10, which is a classic "me" moment). By the end of high school, as a means of protecting my own ego, I identified more with my academic accomplishment than the effort it took to get there. 

In college I was faced with a harsh reality of having a new group of peers: the level of natural ability of those surrounding me was like nothing I had experienced before, and I hadn't realized the extent to which my effort would have to increase to match their pace. Neither of my parents had experienced this themselves, so nobody had warned me. As a consequence of my failure to understand the simple notion that college was harder than high school and would therefore require more effort, my first quarter of college left me on academic probation with a 1.9 GPA. 

This was a wake-up call. I changed the way I studied, sought out campus resources (especially for my Chemistry and Calculus courses), and began studying in groups with peers. I turned the metaphorical ship around and ultimately graduating with honors.

Entering law school, I had absolutely no experience in the legal field. As a first generation law student, I had no idea of the academic and professional advantage of coming in with legal assistant or paralegal experience. When it came time to interview for my first summer job, I had nothing on my resume besides the menial jobs I worked in high school and college, most notably at McDonalds. I was embarrassed by this. How was I supposed to compete with my peers, some who had spent years working in law firms as paralegals or administrative assistants?

My first interview was with a law firm based in Sacramento. The firm partner asked me the dreaded question: what legal experience did I have. I had none, and I told him so. I suppose he knew this, because he replied saying that was the reason he chose to interview me over other candidates. More explicitly, he told me that seeing "McDonalds" on my resume told him I knew how to work. Go figure. 

My experience is not an isolated one, especially for first generation students. The reading that inspired this post was Michelle Obama's Becoming. In her memoir, Obama briefly discusses her academic experience in comparison to that of her peers. Despite being a good student, she always felt like there were others ahead of her "whose achievements seemed effortless," but with "with hours of studying [she] could often close that gap."

The things I perceived to be holding me back-- my lack of professional experience and the way I had to work 50% harder than everyone around me to accomplish the same things-- ended up working in my favor. My lack of professional experience was interpreted as having a strong work ethic, and my ability to put my head down and get the job done has seemed to be an invaluable skill in the field of law.

As many other students have noted in their blog posts, status as a first generation student status is a signal of "ambition and resilience." Although we (or maybe just I) find it easy to focus on the challenges of being first gen, the status signals much more than disadvantage. First-generation status suggests a strong work ethic, diligence, and attention to detail that have been necessary to get us to get to where we are today.