Reto Gubelmann

Growing up in a predominantly working class environment taught me to always hedge my bets. Always have a plan B, always make enough money to sustain yourself, always hope for success but be prepared for failure. So, I was cautious, always having a job to generate income for this month and the next, and I was always a little worried about what would be next year.

You know what: As a 20-something without children to take care of and a huge amount of dept who is studying at a Swiss university (I understand that this can be different for different places), you have preciously little to lose. Go for it. Join your colleague in her crazy but exciting startup idea and maybe lose some time and money. Spend weeks studying something just because you are absolutely on fire for it. Don’t, at that point, worry about your future career or your banking account balance. If it’s just you you have to take care of: You’ll be fine, believe me.

This is of course much easier if your middle-class mom and dad reliably wire you the funds for next month’s rent. But honestly: This is your time to dare stuff, to do crazy things that form your character, teach you things you will benefit from for the rest of your life.

Imagine you are the only person in your family and among your peers who goes to university. You really are a big fish in a small pond there. Maybe your parents are particularly proud of you, as the first and likely only member of the family to go to university.

Also, you likely had a number of glass ceilings to break through: Monetary, cultural, or even geographical obstacles to overcome. And apparently you did it. This makes it very, very easy to develop pride. Pride in your achievements, in where you are now, in how you have supposedly “outgrown” or “outperformed” your peers from primary, secondary, or maybe even high school (just as if life in itself was about outperforming in the first place).

This is foolish, dangerous, and it will take all the fun out of studying (and maybe later research). It is foolish because it is wrong: It is simply wrong that you have made it to university solely because of your grit, intelligence, resilience, or whatever the object of pride is in your case. The very fact that you had so much as a chance to attend university means that you should be grateful, not filled with vain pride. It is also foolish because on entering university, you will stop being the big fish in the small pond. It is dangerous because the game has changed and it might cost you your degree if you realize too late. Maybe you effortlessly lead in class in your primary, secondary, or high school. University is different. It’s populated with many of your kind, and many that are smarter. You need to roll up your sleeves and study hard, perhaps for the first time in your life.

It will take out the fun of studying if you derive your self-worth and satisfaction from extrinsics. Constantly having to check whether you still lead in some ranking of your cohort is the best way to kill the joy of studying, learning, debating and arguing with your new peers. Try to stay like a kid, forgetful of her own image, fully immersed in what she is fascinated by.

You should also avoid the other extreme of the emotional spectrum that can hit you at university: Impostors syndrome, the sometimes quite obsessive idea that you do not really deserve to be where you are, at a university. That you are actually much too stupid or lazy, far inferior to your peers. I still remember how this tormented me during my first year or two as a PhD student. It can be absolutely horrible. As a first-generation student, you are the first of your kind at university. If your mom is a professor, it’s much easier to feel that it’s natural you are there. Maybe you already know a lecture hall from visiting her.

Additionally, the culture of academia is alien to you. You might feel comfortable at a mechanic’s workshop, because this is what feels like home, but university is new to you.

But you know what, this is just as foolish, dangerous, and it will also (more obviously perhaps) take the fun out of studying and researching. It is foolish because, very likely, the fact that you’ve made it despite the specific challenges facing first-generation students entails that you actually are a better fit for the place that your average peer (again, beware of developing vain pride out of it). It is factually wrong to feel that you do not belong here. It is dangerous, again, because it can impair your ability to deliver and perform. And believe me, the further you move up, the more pressure you will feel. If you are so busy telling yourself you do not belong, there is little time left to study or research.

What then could you do when either vain pride or impostor syndrome hits you (which still happens to me as well)? I found that to try to be grateful was a key antidote to both. If you just enjoy where you are, who you are, who you are privileged to work and study with, and acknowledge that most of it is none of your making, then pride will evaporate. The same seems to hold for impostor syndrome: They are both grounded in the same fundamental premise: That having a place at a university is exclusively earned by the individual holding the place. And this premise is just wrong in this form.

Sure, you have worked hard and are probably pretty good at thinking, and you can be grateful for both. But please also accept that there are other people, maybe already from your community, who are at least as smart and hard-working and who did not make it to university. Think of your parents who supported you despite their financial hardships — and not even fully understanding where you where going. Of that teacher who believed in you and started disclosing possibilities for you that were not even on your map. That sunrise after a long night of partying where God told you that you can do it. So be grateful.

Also, your belonging to university is not something that you need to re-ensure by your own making every day, every hour, every conversation. They are part of who you are, gifts of god, nature, society, whatever you put your faith in. And the fact that you are where you are, as the first of your kin, means that you have what it takes. Be grateful for it. And now have fun.