First-generation college students go through unique obstacles getting their degree, but they are not alone.
Stacy Graham-Hunt, SCSU JRN ’06, was one of those students, and returned to Southern to share her journey with 40 current students during a First-Gen Day Celebration.
It took a lot of persistence, she said.
An early conversation between Graham-Hunt and her grandmother opened her eyes to education.
“She asked me kind of jokingly, have I considered where I might be going to college? And I said ‘no’ because I was 9 and only in the fourth grade,” Graham-Hunt said during a presentation at the Adanti Student Center Theater on Nov. 6.
Graham-Hunt’s grandmother pushed her to plan out her future. Before attending Southern, Graham-Hunt experienced the trials and tribulations of college. First, her grandmother died, and she was not accepted to her dream school, Spelman College. Then she attended Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University [FAMU] in Tallahassee, Fla., where she struggled with heartbreak and keeping her grades up.
“Now I’m embarrassed and trying to figure out how do I make sense of this? How do I tell my mother and my father that I should be in college when I’m doing all these things and ending up with this 1.7 GPA and not having enough money,” Graham-Hunt said. “Nothing is going right.”
But she persisted.
“Stopping never crossed my mind,” Graham-Hunt said.
Graham-Hunt was watching ‘Making the Band’ on MTV and was inspired by artists becoming superstars.
“While I’m watching the show, I’m like, ‘I would love to work here.’ So, any time there was an executive that would come on the screen, I’d write their name down.” Graham-Hunt said.
She used this opportunity to send out her resume to everyone from assistants to executives and got an internship with the finance department at Bad Boy Records.
Graham-Hunt said: “Even though I was going through this really rough time before, I didn’t just sit in that rough time. I tried to figure out how to get out of it.”
Graham-Hunt knew she didn’t want to go back to FAMU, so she applied to another internship with MTV to figure out what she wanted to do. She realized all her life she would drive by Southern when going to High School, so she applied and decided to major in Journalism since she always wanted to be an author.
Graham-Hunt said: “I was totally comfortable with my career in journalism.”
What helped Graham-Hunt as a first-generation college student was finding that person or people to hold her accountable.
Professor Frank Harris, III was mentioned as Graham-Hunt’s mentor. He was able to tell her when she was slipping, when she needed to step up.
“He called me out when I needed to do better and pivot,” Graham-Hunt said, “One of the things I didn’t have at FAMU was somebody that cared about me like that.”
Graham-Hunt is now an award winning journalist and publicist with 18 years of communication experience. She started her career as a multimedia reporter in Connecticut and has written for News 12, Connecticut Post, New Haven Register, and Black Enterprise magazine. She published her first book, Processing Pain, in 2017. She is now the owner of Stacy Graham-Hunt Public Relations.
First generation college students who feel like they are struggling should know success will be at the end, she told the students.
“The better you are at being creative and not getting so frustrated by every challenge, I think that’s what helps you,” Graham-Hunt said.