Selena Savatdy
Selena Savatdy, 18, is a first-year student majoring in psychology and minoring in integrative neuroscience at the University of Minnesota. She is exploring the possibility of pursuing graduate school and a career in counseling and therapy.
Savatdy reflected on what her first-gen identity means to her:
“I feel like it’s a big motivator of why I’m going to school. Sometimes, when I’m burnt out, I just remember, ‘Okay, my family has worked really hard to get here.’ It’s kind of a reminder of my past and just to keep going even though it’s hard.
I’m half-Mexican and I’m half-Lao. Both of my parents immigrated here, so I feel like I hold those identities pretty close to me, especially because the U is pretty diverse. I’ve been in a bunch of different classes that focus on ethnicity and values and identity, so I’ve gotten more in touch with that.
I wanted to keep learning. I didn’t really ever think about not going to school. I think it’s been enforced by my mom a lot too as a reminder because she didn’t have the opportunity to go to school. So I feel like I did it for me and I did it for my parents.
Both of my parents completed high school, but my mom did not continue due to financial reasons. Then my dad, he went to a community college, but he didn’t finish.
I feel like they have always constantly reminded me — ‘When you finish college’ and ‘When you go to college’ — throughout my whole life.
Since my brother went to the U of M, I feel like it made me feel more comfortable choosing this school. If ever needed advice from him — even though we have different majors — I still found it helpful just to have somebody as close as him to me.
I think it was midterm week, and the first semester of college. And I remember being super stressed out because there were a bunch of tests, and I wasn’t used to this. But a couple of weeks after it was done, I get my test scores back, and I did really well.
I feel like keeping up my grades and getting those good test scores back just made me feel good because I never really succeeded in high school, or I never really went above and beyond.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview by Caleb Fravel