The graduate student experience can be drastically different from the undergraduate experience. From research and conferences to teaching responsibilities and finding off-campus housing, there are plenty of new, confusing frontiers to navigate\u2014and doubly so if you\u2019re the first person in your family to pursue an advanced degree.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s just one of the reasons why Newbury Center\u2019s<\/a> director, Maria Dykema Erb<\/a>, founded the First-Generation Graduate Student Symposium while working at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n That\u2019s also why she brought it with her when she came to Boston University in 2021. On Friday, February 24, BU will host the sixth annual symposium<\/a>\u2014the largest to date. As of February 22, the free event had reached capacity at 285 participants.<\/p>\n \u201cGraduate school can already be very isolating, and you might be the only first-gen student in your department,\u201d says Erb, herself a first-gen undergrad and graduate student, who has written about the need to support first-gen graduate students<\/a>. \u201cAs with much of the Newbury Center\u2019s work, the goal of the symposium is to build community among first-gen students.\u201d<\/p>\n