Imagining Graduation
by Beatrice Alicea, MSW
The beauty of social work is the diversity that it brings. Social work builds community by bringing people together from diverse backgrounds and experiences for a common cause—one so strong that we strive to break barriers and challenge the status quo. Social work empowers, inspires, and raises awareness. Social work brings to light what has been buried across generations.
My contributions to the field encompass youth development and mentoring. I aspire to be a role model to students, especially to those belonging to underrepresented groups. As a first-generation college graduate, I had no idea what to expect. I had never met anyone who had graduated from college other than my teachers. I didn’t have access to anyone who could tell me what it was like.
Many first-generation college students and students from underrepresented groups tend to have limited access to resources and opportunities. I validate this by telling students, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
Lack of exposure for underrepresented groups has resulted in an overwhelming number of limitations for students, including opportunities, skills, and hobbies.
You cannot be aware of something that does not exist in your everyday world. As a result, students are limited to beliefs that there are no opportunities for them outside of their typical experiences. Throughout my career serving youth, I have heard students say, “People like me don’t go to college.” Youth generalize what they see, as well as what they don’t see. How could youth think there is a place for them if they do not see people who look like them, or have lived like them, hold positions of influence in what is framed to be “the real world”? The real world presented to them is illustrated as a place for folks who are not like them. It is imperative that students have representation of their identities in their institutions and communities.
As a Latina woman working in higher education, I often find myself in spaces of differences. Someone had to remind me that different does not mean less than.
For this reason, I encourage and challenge students to try something new, step out of their comfort zones, and seek a mentor. A mentor can serve as the link between your everyday life and the rest of the world that exists beyond your daily norm.
A message to students and youth: Your circumstances do not define your future. The challenges you face today do not have to persist throughout your life. It is time to redefine your norms. It is time to create the life you deserve—the life you did not know was a reality.
No student should ever think they are incapable of doing something simply because no one has ever told them they could. This is me telling you, the student who is unsure of your future: You can do it. I know it. Others know it. I hope you know it, too.
Beatrice Alicea, MSW, is Assistant Director of Community Service and Civic Engagement at Trinity College in Connecticut. She holds a Master of Social Work from the University of Connecticut and is a board member of the East Hartford Alumni Association and Education Foundation, developing scholarship opportunities for students enrolled in East Hartford Public Schools.