FGLI at Barnard: Jessica’s Story
Today I wanted to talk about what it is like to be a first generation and low income student at Barnard. For most of us, college can be a stressful time. We simultaneously feel pressure to succeed academically while we navigate being a FGLI student at a prestigious institution. This was in fact one of my main concerns as I came to Barnard, and I wasn’t sure how I would fit in with this new reality. Fortunately, I have had a great experience in this aspect: I found a community at Barnard that welcomes FGLI students and more than that, understands that students come from different backgrounds and consequently have different needs.
Institutionally speaking, there are many resources at Barnard specific to FGLI students and I would like to highlight a few of them. One of the resources that I use the most is the FLIP Library. This is an archive of books reserved specifically for FGLI students. The FLIP Library contains common and necessary books for all departments and classes at Barnard. You can borrow these books if you are part of the FGLI community and stick with them for the entire semester. The library system available at Barnard/ Columbia and especially the FLIP Library has been extremely important and useful for me to have access to the required materials of my classes. In addition, Barnard has many events and workshops throughout the academic year specifically for FGLI students in order to help us to develop different skills, and also to hear from us about our needs as FGLI students. Finally, the Furman Counseling Center holds monthly group sessions for FGLI students in order to support FGLI students and help us to connect with other FGLI students.
Barnard’s community has always been very receptive. One thing that I find positive about it is that even when Barnard isn’t approaching some of the specific needs that the FGLI community has, they are open to listening and talking to us in order to try to change it and accommodate us. I know that we can still make more and more progress as an institution to continue supporting FGLI students, but I am happy to see and be part of a community that is evolving everyday and trying to achieve this goal as much as possible.
- Jessica de Oliveira Moreira