Zachary DesJardins and John Martinez are Academic Advisors at the State University of New York at Albany, and they work with students every day. In this conversation we learned how important it is for all of us to recognize that we are in a constant state of change and how crucial it is to be present in the moment. Zachary and John, both First Generation students themselves, shared some of the challenges these students face, but more importantly they stressed how essential it is to help these students recognize the strengths they bring and to help them celebrate their accomplishments. After you listen to this conversation you’ll be as enthusiastic as these two advisors are about supporting these students, you’ll understand how one person can make a profound difference, and how parents can be a fundamental part of the success equation.

SUBSCRIBE VIA
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn Radio | iHeart Radio

Please leave us a review at “Love the Podcast” to help others find us.

---

Vicki first heard John Martinez and Zacchary DesJardins when they presented a session at the Region I conference of NACADA, the National Academic Advising Association. Their session was compelling and something that college parents should hear. We’re excited to have had the opportunity to talk with them in this episode. Both Zachary and John work with students as Advisors at the State University of New York at Albany and both bring an important perspective to their jobs as First Generation students.  Our conversation in this episode touches upon both the First Generation experience and how mindfulness can help all students stay focused and succeed.

We hope that this episode can also help parents understand how college academic advising can work and how these advisors support students every day.  This is an important profession that can make a big difference for students.

Both John and Zachary share some stories about situations and students that helped us understand what new students on campus can face and what kinds of guidance can help these students adjust. They also reminded us that every student is different and may need different kinds of supports.  YOU know your student is special, and it’s good to know that advisors (and professors!) understand this, too.

Zachary and John reminded us how important it is not to focus on our students’ lacks and challenges, but how important it is to focus on their strengths and to help them recognize what they bring to their work. Zach said, “I tell students I’m there to build them up!”

We heard about what John and Zachary call “The First Generation Student Dilemma,” the pressures, challenges and fears these students face. They shared real and inspiring stories about students and what they think, feel, and can become.

Here’s the way Zachary described our conversation on Linked In. We couldn’t possibly say it better.

“During our conversation, we explored how embracing the concept of impermanence can actually be a source of strength—helping first-gen students adapt and thrive in the face of change. We also discussed the role mindfulness plays in staying present and resilient, especially when navigating the often overwhelming world of higher education. Most importantly, we highlighted the need to focus on the strengths and assets that first-gen students possess, rather than viewing them through a deficit lens.
It was an enlightening discussion that reminded me of why I’m so passionate about supporting first-generation students. These students are pioneers, and their journeys are filled with unique challenges that require innovation, resilience, and a strong support system.” 

This episode is a little longer than some, but stick with it if you can. The stories at the end are worth hearing!

If you have a First Generation student, if you know one, or if you know the parent of a First Gen student, you’ll find this episode enlightening and helpful and will help you celebrate your First Gen student!

If you’d like to follow up with either of these advisors, here’s how to reach out.

Email for John: <jmartinez3@albany.edu>;

Email for Zachary: zach.desjardins2528@gmail.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachary-desjardins-m-s-mpa-396619106/
Zachary also says, “If anyone is a member of NACADA and would like to be apart of the First-Generation College Student Advising Community, or if anyone has any questions about supporting first-generation college students, please contact my email address.”

Don’t forget that you can listen to all of our previous podcast episodes here or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also go to followthepodcast.com/collegeparentcentral to add our podcast so that you’ll receive each new episode as we release it.

And finally, a request for your help. Podcast ratings and reviews are important to help our podcast become visible to more people who might want or need the information we share. We’ve made it even easier for you to leave us a review! Simply go to lovethepodcast.com/collegeparentcentral and leave us rating or review.

Note: Some links in our post are for affiliate products. If you use our links, College Parent Central receives a small percentage of your purchase price. This does not change the cost to you.  We think it’s only fair to let you know that.

Transcript:

Announcer: 0:10

Welcome to the College Parent Central podcast. Whether your child is just beginning the college admission process or is already in college, this podcast is for you. You’ll find food for thought and information about college and about navigating that delicate balance of guidance, involvement and knowing when to get out of the way. Join your hosts as they share support and a celebration of the amazing experience of having a child in college.

Vicki Nelson: 0:45

Welcome to the College Parent Central podcast. This is the podcast where we talk about anything that has to do with parenting a college student or someone who’s getting ready to go to college, and sometimes even those students who have graduated from college. If you have a child anywhere in that sequence, we hope we have some information for you. My name is Vicki Nelson and I am one of the co-hosts of this podcast. I am solo today in terms of a host, but I am not alone. I am a college professor of communication and, more importantly I think for this podcast I am also the parent of three daughters who have all gone to college and they’ve come out the other side. I’ve survived, and so have they, so there is hope that you can do that. As I said, I am not here alone today. I’m very excited. I have two people here with me that I know you’re going to want to hear from. We’re going to talk today with John Martinez and Zachary, I should have asked how to pronounce it, Desjardins.

Zachary DesJardins: 1:53

Desjardins, yeah,

Vicki Nelson:

Okay, my French, my high school French, is coming through. It helped me out.

Vicki Nelson: 2:00

Oui madame, and John and Zachary are both academic advisors in the Advising and Academic Support Center at the State University of New York at Albany, and I first heard them give a presentation at a NACADA Region 1 conference NACADA, one of those wonderful acronyms that we use, that’s the National Association of College Academic Advisors academic advising and they did a presentation about a number of things which they wove together, and I knew that the things that they talked about were things that the parents who listened to this podcast would want to hear about. They are on the front line of working with students all the time and they had a lot to share, so I’m going to start by asking them to introduce themselves to you and to tell you a little bit about what they do. Zachary, do you want to start?

Zachary DesJardins: 3:07

Yes, hello. So I want to say, Vicki, thank you so much for actually having me on. I’m really excited about this and I’m really excited to kind of talk to you, about this amazing topic that we actually brought up in NACADA, because it’s something that’s very near and dear to my heart. But to introduce myself, my name is Zachary Desjardins. I’m a university academic advisor. I’m also a first year experience course instructor where I teach a first gen college student seminar for incoming first gen first semester students. I’m also the chair of NACADA’s first generation college student advising community as well. So if anyone would be interested, feel free. I’m sure Vicki will post my contact information. I’m more than happy to talk about that. We’ll get more involved with first-gen students, but I actually work with all different types of students within their first two years of college. Actually just found out just not too long ago, maybe around two months, that I’m actually going to be piloting the first-gen academic advising model for around 100 to 115 first semester, first year in college students, and so I can talk about that more later on.

Zachary DesJardins: 4:11

But I said, I’m an academic advisor. I kind of work through students to kind of discuss majors, minors, class suggestions, you know, talk about their lives. You know, I think it’s really important to kind of talk about what things happen outside the classroom, impact things while they’re inside the classroom and all that type of stuff. And, like I said, I love my job and I love working with my colleagues, like John Martinez, who’s going to introduce himself as well, and it’s a great job. I really love it every single day. So thank you for having us on, Vicki.

Vicki Nelson: 4:36

Great Thanks. Thanks for being here, John. How about you?

John Martinez: 4:58

My name is John Martinez.

I’m again a university academic advisor.

I’ve been in this role for about eight years now and I work a lot with staff development and thinking about like how staff can better enjoy advising, being more present in advising, doing more things on campus, just enjoying their conversations with students and just getting more out of the whole experience.

John Martinez: 5:15

Same thing with students. I just really love the idea of getting students to kind of get more out of that college experience as opposed to feeling like it’s just a degree, it’s just the paper, it’s just the thing that they’re doing. So this topic is really sort of the mind of Zach and I kind of melding into one, thinking about how just sort of the plight of the first generation college student but also the plight of sort of the advising professional and sort of what that looks like and how that relationship can benefit from just sort of just being here together more often. And I’m a mentor for the Region 1 NACADA program and I’ve been getting a lot more involved in NACADA and I just really love being in front of people talking about a lot of things so it doesn’t matter what.

It is that I talk about it, so I’m happy to be able to talk about it.

Vicki Nelson: 5:58

Well, a little bit that I’ve gotten to know you. I think the idea of melding your two minds together might be a little bit scary. But that’s okay.

Vicki Nelson: 6:07

I really like John, that you refer to the advising center as a hub, because I think students often don’t stop to think about that. In order to advise them, you really do have to know a lot about everything all around campus, and so if they have questions, it’s the perfect place to go because it really does bring everything together. And we’ll see we might talk a little more about NACADA later, but I think it’s helpful for parents to know that there actually is a national association that is just for advisors. This is this really is a profession that makes it a big difference for students. So there, you know that that professional development and sharing stories and sharing information is always helpful.

Vicki Nelson: 7:00

I heard you at NACADA and I asked you to join me on the podcast because somehow you managed to weave together a presentation that talked about Buddhism and mindfulness and first generation students, and it all came together and it all made sense. I admit that as you started out, I thought, well, this is interesting, but what does it have to do with that and what does that? And it really came together. So I thought that might be something that would be interesting to parents, and I think it might help if we start by breaking it down a little bit. And so I don’t know, maybe, John, would you get us started talking a little bit about . . .  Your presentation started by talking about something called impermanence. What is that and what does it have to do with anything?

John Martinez: 7:55

So, impermanence about a year ago I actually about a year and a half ago I was talking to a lot of students throughout the year and I kept seeing this constant conversation coming up of like a fear of things changing and not being the same and and they’re they’re desperately trying to kind of make things stable again. And so I really just I went on Google and I was like what is a word? I was trying to figure out what the word was for constant change and the first thing that came up was impermanence and I started to. I really liked the word. I like the sound of it, like the look of it, so I started looking into it and I started to realize that this word is is nothing new. It’s a huge, huge part of Buddhist belief, but even just like philosophy and Zen philosophy, of like this idea that things are always sort of changing.

John Martinez: 8:39

And at NACADA I used this story, uh, about a year ago, I uh, my wife and I have had a house for six years now and we’ve been together for about 15 years, and we had this house for six years and nothing really happened. We had little run-ins with little critters here and there, as most homeowners do, and so we just kind of let it go. And then one day I was walking around in our upstairs bathroom because we just got them done and I saw this little bug and I was like I didn’t know what this was and I was like, oh, that’s weird, but I don’t like bugs, so I just kind of got rid of it and I was like all right, let’s go figure it out.

John Martinez: 9:10

Then all of a sudden, like a week later, I was walking outside and I’m looking at my siding and all of a sudden I see some more of those little bugs and I had never seen them before, so I took a picture of them and I kind of kept going with it and then I walked, I was upstairs in their bathroom again and all of a sudden they’re on the windowsill and I was like now you’re in my territory. I don’t like that, we’re going to have to start. The battle lines are being drawn. And so I started looking them up and then I realized that they were called springtails, and for anyone that doesn’t know what a springtail is, it’s the most benign bug. It literally does nothing except for, like it likes moisture and mold and mildew and stuff.

John Martinez: 9:46

And but the problem is with springtails is that they have like one giant fault and it’s that they essentially breed in like the bajillions in humid weather, and that last year, if you remember, it was like all the time it was like rainy and wet in the Northeast it was like, oh my God, it was horrible. And so this was like perfect breeding ground for springtails. And what happens is they don’t typically go to your house unless they run out of places to live and then they overpopulate and then they kind of migrate to whatever’s next. We happen to be next, and so that was fine, except for one they’re hard to get rid of because they don’t really respond to like certain insecticides and stuff, and two they breed like forever and it takes forever to once you have them in your house.

There’s already too many of them and you have to kind of.

John Martinez: 10:30

it’s like months of treatment and months of doing this. So what started was exactly that. It was like months of a war between me and the springtails, trying to figure out how to keep them out of the house, because we went away for a weekend. We came back and they were on our windows, they were on our bed, they were on the kids’ window. I was freaking out. I was like, oh my gosh, and so I went to war and I looked up every. I’m an expert on springtails. Right now I can tell you their anatomy.

John Martinez: 10:55

I can tell you what they’re here for I can tell you everything about them.

Vicki Nelson:

You’ve got a side gig.

John Martinez: 10:58

I’ve got a side gig, I’m so good at it. So I went through the whole time. So now this is like again. The summer was so hot and humid it was so hard to get rid of them. So it was like June, July, August hit, Then finally September hit, and then finally I started to see like the work was paying off and I was like, okay, I think this is good, I think I’m starting to finally get there.

John Martinez: 11:20

And all of a sudden I was talking to my wife and I was like you know, I think I did it. I think I finally like culled the masses and I was like I think I finally got to where we are right now we don’t have any springtails and stuff. And she goes. You know that’s great. And we had this whole conversation about how she had been worried about me because my son was born April 5th and the springtails sort of hit right at the end of April and when we brought him home, it like was immediately sidelined by this thing that I could not control and I got so anxious and so frustrated and so worked up about this stupid bug that literally was just existing in the world and I was just like how dare you  that I can’t tell you one thing that we did that summer and I can’t tell you and can’t remember most of it, because I was so anxious and so worked up that I was never going to get rid of this problem.

John Martinez: 12:10

I was never going to do this thing, and when we started talking about this idea of impermanence, it really hit me that, like that is sort of the quintessential example of what happens in a lot of our lives where, like, we end up in places where we have something that happened or something that’s currently happening that’s occupying a lot of our mental energy, and when we don’t set it aside to be here right now, we end up missing a lot of what’s happening in those conversations.

John Martinez: 12:38

And impermanence is exactly that. We tend to think that everything is stable and then we have moments of instability that like, oh, I lost my job or I broke up with, or this happened or that happened, and so our goal is to get back to stability. Impermanence is really the flip side of that. It’s that everything is actually always unstable and we have little moments of stability in between, and that our unhappiness comes from that. Wanting everything to be stable when it’s not, life is inherently chaotic. It’s inherently change all the time. We can’t control the things that happen. More often than not, most of what we control is what we react to and how we react, and when we started talking about first-gen college students, we started saying, yeah, I mean, this is their lives.

John Martinez: 13:19

This is all our lives. But imagine now you’re coming to college for the first time and you’re doing all these things and Zach will talk a bit about like that first year in college dilemma. But it’s how do we get to the present? Because without that, we end up missing a lot of really important parts of our day and our conversations, and because we’re so worked up about this thing, it doesn’t really matter that we’re missing the important things that are happening in front of us. And so that was sort of like the sort of like the beginning of that idea of like how do we use that then to talk about how we can better support first gen students, all our students, first gen students as well as how we as professionals can be more present, or even, in this case, parents, how parents and I’m a parent to like how can we be more present in our, in our kids lives by trying to block out all the other stuff? And so that’s kind of like the idea of of that impermanence philosophy

Vicki Nelson: 14:04

I love that story because it really does illustrate, I mean, as you were talking about it and talking about you know, missing those first few months.

I mean you didn’t, you weren’t physically absent, but yeah, but not being present as present as you would like to, it makes me think about a lot of the first year students not necessarily just first gen, but first year students that I see who are so overwhelmed with trying to deal with everything that they they aren’t in the moment of the school.

Vicki Nelson: 14:44

Okay, so we’ve got that idea of impermanence, and now let’s move a little bit to first-generation students, and these, as we’re talking about them and correct me if I’m wrong are students for whom neither parent has earned a college degree. So that’s what we’re using as a definition of first-year students. Is that correct? First-generation students, is that correct?

Zachary DesJardins: 15:13

Yeah, so when it comes to the definition, honestly, each institution kind of varies it depending on the institution itself. But for me personally, I use where neither parent has earned a four-year college degree. So if your parents have earned an associate’s degree, you know you’re still taking a first-gen student. I need to go about four-year model, which is pretty common amongst other institutions, but, like I said, it literally depends on the institution

Vicki Nelson: 15:36

Okay, so that’s important is that even if you’ve you’ve got an associate’s degree, your, your student, is still dealing with a new kind of experience of a first generation working on that, and I know you’ve both talked about working a lot with first generation students and that, and then you’ve also talked about as an advisor, you’re the hub of information and support and you’re there to help them. So I’m curious whether there are, in your experience, do you have any observations about first-generation students in terms of using those supports? Do they take advantage? Do they use them more or less, differently than other students?

Zachary DesJardins: 16:24

Yeah, so I’ll, yeah, Yeah, I’ll take it.

Zachary DesJardins: 16:29

So yeah, so first of all, I really want to just mention, before we kind of dive in here, I think it’s really important when working with first-generation college students is that we really focus on the strengths. So right now we’re talking about the problems, but I really want to flip the script and focus more on their strengths, the things they’re truly bringing to the table, because I feel like the deficit model is something that can be very detrimental when working with these students. So, if you do work with these students, really focus on the positives. But to answer your question, Vicki, I think honestly, a lot of first-generation college students kind of struggle with reaching out to resources. You know there is this amazing well, it’s not amazing, but it’s amazing phenomenon to study, but not necessarily a really good experience for first-gen students. And that is the hidden curriculum and that’s basically all the implicit and explicit things are being said on throughout the college experience. They’re those hidden messages you hear. You know like, hey, if you need help, go see an office hour, what do you do during the office hours? Or how do you play this game, like I tell all my students is like college is kind of like this game and some of us have the rules and some of us don’t, you know, and that’s something that’s just, it’s real. You know I am a proud first year college student graduate myself. You know what I mean. But I know it really took my advisor to help me kind of navigate those types of environments. You know what I mean. I didn’t realize.

Zachary DesJardins: 17:40

I remember one time when I was going through undergrad I was like one of my advisors was like hey, I have a problem with my financial aid bill. Where do I go? And before I actually had my TRIO advisor because I’m a proud TRIO alum as well because TRIO works, shout out to all my TRIO colleagues out there but they were literally just giving me a little snicker. I was like, oh, financial aid duh and I duh. And I was like I’m like, but it wasn’t just a duh moment to me because I didn’t know. You know, and I think somebody says like you know, advisors, as other professionals on this campus was like we assume, assume all these rules are explicit, but they’re not. A lot of them are implicit. You know, where do you go to type through things? What’s that kind of conversation like when I work with my students, because they tend to not really reach out to financial aid. They tend to not reach out to me.

Zachary DesJardins: 18:25

As an academic advisor, I try to meet the students where they’re at, and one of the greatest quotes I ever told was by one of my mentors, and stuff always told me was meet students where they’re at, not where we want them to be. And what he means by that is actually meet the students. If they don’t know where financial aid is, talk to them about financial aid, but let’s don’t talk about it. Connect them to an individual. You know, John and I both work at University of Albany, which is a huge school. There’s probably around 17,000 to 18,000 students, and that’s not even counting graduate or even doctoral students. I love doctoral students as well, and so because of that, campus is quite big, it can feel quite large, not only on the physical sense but on the emotional sense, on the stress sense, and so I try to tell them is connect people to an individual, and not only connect them with the individual, but also walk through and role play.

Zachary DesJardins: 19:10

What is that kind of conversation going to look like? You know what I mean. So let’s say hypothetically, let’s say I saw who needs to meet with John Martinez. I’m going to tell him hey, this is John Martinez. When you see them, call them Mr Martinez, you know, because they actually prefer to have a little more. John personally likes more John. But for this matter’s sake we’ll say just Mr Martinez, because you don’t know him yet, and let him figure this out. But then go through and these are the questions you should ask Mr Martinez. You know what I mean. And then what other questions do you have about this process? Let’s write those things down. Kind of have that little mock, that little role play, which I know a lot of advisors kind of hate, you know.

Zachary DesJardins: 19:49

But I think it’s really helpful to kind of help these students kind of articulate what they need to do and honestly, it helps campus that is so large feel so small. And I think that’s the goal we’re trying to do is show them that there’s a community and there’s a culture that’s waiting to support you. You just have to go and look for it. So, like I tell people all the time I think it’s really hard to answer your original question is like do those students actually reach out to help? I think some of them do, some of them don’t. You know what I mean, but I think it’s really important to focus on their strengths, like their pioneers, their leaders.

Zachary DesJardins: 20:16

You know they’re doing amazing things on campus. You know they’re here at UAlbany or any other college for a reason. This wasn’t some fluke, that you just happened to get a drawing and then you actually end up getting into college. So reminding them of those things, but also challenge them as well, to kind of walk through the process with them, you know, guide them step-by-step of the process, that’s what’s truly going to help support them moving forward. But I think what’s really important and we mentioned this in our presentation is that the first-gen college student experience is not a monolith, and neither should we be when we’re working with these students. There’s not one way that’s going to work with all these types of students. You have to treat them each by an individual, case-by-case basis, because I think that’s what they truly deserve and what they’re going to get from all advisors.

Vicki Nelson: 21:00

Wow, yeah, I really appreciate that you start by talking about recognize their strengths, because it makes me realize that when I read about first-generation students and when we talk about them, often it’s the obstacles that they face and the challenges that they face and the lack, the things that they’re missing, things like that hidden curriculum that they don’t. You know, they don’t know what they don’t know, and that’s all really important. But they do come with certain strengths that we may not focus on enough and that’s really helpful.

Zachary DesJardins: 21:43

And can I add to that too? I think, like, even when I work with my students too as well, I think some students like, because they’ve been told up into this point, they’ve always been what do you lack? What do you not have, you know, you’re always told. Like I had one student telling me in the class that I teach, they’re like, when you look at the definition of a first-generation college student, already it’s saying where neither parent has owned a college degree, you know, or four-year model with out a four-year college degree. So they’re already operating at deficit even by the mere definition. So even before they come to us, and so like when they come to us, like, oh man, I already feel defeated. So it’s our job as advisors to show them and have them actually see the light that’s truly locked inside of them, you know, and help them expose it to the world.

Zachary DesJardins: 22:25

And I would tell my students soon they always get joke around about this, but it’s true when they’ll come see me what’s safe for an academic recovery, which we actually work with students on academic probation as well, you know they always come with shame in their heads down, like yeah, I didn’t do so well, and everything, and they think I’m gonna ask him oh, hey, what happened last semester? But instead I ask hey, you got an A in your forensic science investigation class. You know what? What happened with that class? That sounds really great. Like how did you get that A? Let’s talk about that and use that as leverage to help them in their other classes as well. And they’re always so caught off guard like, oh, I think you’re going to come and scold me. I’m like I know you call me dad because side note my students call me dad because all my dad jokes and all this kind of stuff and they even give me a dad pie. But that’s a side note.

Zachary DesJardins: 23:09

But I’m like, I’m not your parent, I’m not here to scold you. I’m here to build you up. I’m here to find the goodness that’s inside of you that you can’t even see yet, and that’s the beauty of our jobs. So I always try to tell people is don’t be afraid to focus on their strengths and use that as leverage, because, honestly, the students love that and eventually they can redefine what first gen truly means to them. It’s not a weakness, it’s actually a sense of pride. Like it took me forever to now say I’m a proud first generation college student graduate and, if I can encourage that since their freshman year I won. So don’t be afraid.

Vicki Nelson: 23:47

Yeah, oh, good, that’s it. That that’s really. That’s exciting. It’s exciting for students to think about that, right, um, but I want to take, I want to, I want to flip it then, um, because they come with these amazing strengths and you know you need to help them find those strengths and recognize that they have them. And parents can do that too, because I think sometimes as parents, we’re so worried about our student I don’t know what I want to say measuring up, and so we’re constantly at them, and so this positive thing is really important. But they do come with also some challenges that all first-year students come with challenges because they don’t necessarily know college and what to expect. But there may be some extra obstacles and challenges for first-generation students, and I know you talked about in your presentation, about what you called the, and John mentioned earlier, the first generation dilemma. So I wonder, I don’t know, Zachary, do you want to talk a little more about that?

Zachary DesJardins: 24:55

Yeah, so what we call a dilemma is because first-generation college students are forever going through this change, you know, through college. You know when they come into college and by the time they graduate, they’re not the same person anymore. I mean, neither is any other student. But for them specifically, you know they may be having things that are going on back home. You know they’re going to impact them. Why they actually go to college, you know.

Zachary DesJardins: 25:18

And so how can we actually currently learn from them and how can they learn from us? Like John mentioned this so perfectly before you know, I mean about, like, our presentation, and why it works so well is because it’s like we can learn from one another, go into this, as their lives are forever changing. Our lives are forever changing and if we don’t neither one of us address this, are we truly living in the moment to truly actually find who we’re actually meant to be? So when you talk about some challenges and stuff like that, I have a lot of students who are like, oh, I want to become a doctor, I want to become a lawyer. You know what I mean. I want these really high-paying jobs.

Zachary DesJardins: 25:54

But when you really sit down and talk to these students, it’s like why do they want to do this? You know, some of them are because my family told me I had to do this. Some of them are saying because I don’t want to actually end up in the same situation my parents are trying to get out of currently right now. You know what I mean. I have some students that a few students will say, yeah, I actually really love this stuff and that’s great. You know what I mean, but that’s not everyone’s experience. You know what I mean.

So I think, trying to figure out what is the why and kind of figure out.

Zachary DesJardins: 26:22

Why do they want to pursue those things? And if it’s one of them is because, hey, I just don’t want to end up in the same situation as my parents. You know they’re choosing that choice out of fear. And what else are they doing out of fear rather than actually truly living in the present? Like John mentioned before, impermanence is making sense and kind of making peace with the sense that life is forever changing and that there may be pockets of stability, but for the most part life is naturally unstable, and making sense and make peace with that. You know what I mean. So, because they’re operating in a sense of fear, what else are they doing out of fear? Do they go to college out of fear? Are they choosing their majors out of fear? Are they joining certain clubs and organizations because they think they can get that one desired outcome?

Zachary DesJardins: 27:06

The thing I wish I tell my students I kind of illustrate it is that no one piece of paper you get is going to guarantee you a job. You know what I mean, and so I try to tell them is your diploma that you get is going to be the key that opens up the door. But guess what? You still have to walk through that door. And what are you walking through that door with? That’s what’s going to change the system. But but if we’re so worried right now because we’re like, oh, I want to change this one change that we can’t focus on that, you know, because we don’t know what that’s going to be. And I’m not a math person. But I have some students who really like math and I said you’re operating like life is one plus one equals two, but unfortunately, life is more like 1x plus 4 equals unknown. We can’t answer that. We don’t know the outcome. You know what I mean? Because no matter what we do, it may not always end up being and that is really the dilemma we’re going through these students are operating in a sense of fear. They’re operating in a sense of oh, I have to have this all figured out. And I tell them guess what? You don’t. Because it’s hard when you’re a first-year going to college and you see, you know, let’s say, one of your class members, you know.

Zachary DesJardins: 28:09

Let’s say it’s Zach, you know, and you look at Zach like, wow, zach has it all figured out. You know what I mean, but why you know. First of all, Zach doesn’t. Has it all figured out, or does he not? You know, is he still struggling as well? So I’m trying to tell people and all of my students I work with is that it’s okay to not have it all figured out, but if we’re going to try to figure it out, let’s live in this very moment and give it our best shot effort. If you have that as a goal, that’s great. Let’s keep that as a goal. But where are we going to still go? How are we going to make the best of this moment to eventually get to where we desire, to where we actually deserve to be? And John, you can elaborate more on this, because I know you do amazing stuff as well.

John Martinez: 28:50

Well, I think one of the things that we want to sort of bring up. When we did this presentation originally, we had talked about the first generation college dilemma, alongside the advisor dilemma, which happens in a lot of advising. We have a lot of appointments back to back, to back the busy seasons, emails, phone calls, like things that are happening all at the same time and, for as much as college students can have a lot of things to take them out of that present moment and to not be able to, as Vicki said before, enjoy their experiences in college and to be present in what they’re doing in college. Advisors can do the same thing and in this instance, in this case as a parent myself, and obviously with the story about the springtails that happened to me already

John Martinez: 29:30

many times is this idea that, like even as parents, we also can get taken away from the present. And so if we’re having conversations with our kids about college and I’m a first generation college student and my kids won’t be, because both my wife and I have gone to college, they’re going to have a different experience than we did because we had to sort of figure this stuff out on our own and that will help us in helping them do what they need to do. But a lot of times we don’t know how to help necessarily we don’t know how to provide the information for them that’s going to help them navigate college. Even honestly, if you went to college back in 1982, college is different now and what it looks like now.

John Martinez: 30:08

So it’s very difficult, I think, for a lot of parents to think about how to support students going through these experiences. When frustration, college students might not even feel comfortable sharing those experiences because they’re nervous about what their parents might say, or they’re nervous about the fact that they’re doing well and their parents did not. There’s a lot of different things that can happen. That allows that conversation to not be able to be as genuine and present and honest as it should be, and then sort of both people sort of suffer for it. Parents then don’t know what their kids are doing and their kids are struggling needlessly. And then kids are having a hard time either even just enjoying college or being able to feel like they’re prepared for what happens afterwards college or being able to feel like they’re prepared for what happens afterwards.

John Martinez: 30:45

And so this sort of dilemma happens on both sides of like. The students are going through these issues and they don’t really know what to think or do about them. But then also the parents either may or may not know that they’re going through these issues. They may be putting really high expectations on their students, like Zach said before, to like take them out of their current situations as if it’s sort of up to them and there’s a lot of pressure. And there’s a lot more pressure now, I think, than there ever was, especially when you hear all the talk about oh, college is a scam, oh, there’s no point in going to college, oh, there’s no point doing this so it’s like people want to return on their investment, and that return we could never guarantee in higher ed, because what we’re selling is not a guarantee.

John Martinez: 31:21

It’s an opportunity and you have to sort of make the most out of that opportunity, and in order to do that you have to be as present as possible in that experience, and when you’re carrying all that weight it’s very difficult to do that.

So that dilemma is a huge part of that process.

Vicki Nelson: 31:39

Wow, yeah, I’m trying to absorb it all. Trying to absorb it all, trying to think about how to focus on the positive and understand that fear that they’re bringing and the responsibilities that’s so often that they have responsibilities outside of just being a student, responsibilities to the family and every student these days as well, I shouldn’t generalize quite that much, but the majority of students these days are worried about finances and student debt and you know all of these things going on, and then parents who want so much to help and support but don’t know so. So then I think, as I listen to all of that that you’re saying, you’ve kind of set us up, um, for this, this dilemma, and who these students are, and you started out by talking about impermanence and mindfulness, and that’s important for all of us, I think you know these days.

Vicki Nelson: 32:52

So can you help us connect those dots a little bit? I mean, you talk about it’s important to be present. You know, as parents, to be present and really listening. I’m a communication professor, so we talk a lot about listening and how to listen and how we don’t listen very well, because our mind is racing and so you’ve got all of that going on but how do you work with first generation students, because I think you do. On being present, it’s one thing to say be present, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are. So how do you help them learn to do that?

John Martinez: 33:35

So I think this actually goes back to something that I noticed pretty early on, because when we make, when we have our incoming faculty in class, we read their essays and we put the schedules for them and we do that and I started noticing really early on that students are very, very I don’t know if parents know this, but students are very, very honest in those essays, like some essays many essays like some are about. Llike you know, they hit the home run and it was like the best moment of their life. And then some are like tragic stories that they’re sharing, that they’re carrying with them, from how divorce has affected them, from how abuse has affected them, from how just so many different things that, like, when we tend to think of students, we think they haven’t lived long enough yet to have many experiences yet in life. But some students have lived lifetimes before coming to college in ways that we haven’t dealt with those things. And I remember I went to go talk to someone after I had read a really sort of heavy essay and I looked at the person. I said you know, it seems to me that, like the best thing we can do for our kids is to be good ourselves and to be able to then share that ability to be able to cope with the things that we deal with and that we go through every day with them, because a lot of times some of the bad stuff goes to them and we don’t want that to happen, but it does tend to happen, and so I think to answer this question is really going back to that idea that, in order to help someone else be mindful, you have to be mindful yourself. You have to be present as much as you can be, which is why we wanted to have this conversation originally, because so many advisors get caught up in the daily grind, the thing that you have to do, and the numbers and the retention and all these things that like, yeah, I mean we need students, students need to pay for college, so the college has money to do things, and all that stuff is real. But the reality is. My favorite part is every single time I get to have a conversation with a student about life.

John Martinez: 35:29

Like class is cool, like what their major is nice, but like life, because this is the first time they’re just starting to figure out that life is way more complicated than they thought it was. It’s way bigger than they thought it was. It has more to do with everything else, has less to do with them than they thought it did, and it’s now this like this moment in time where they have to figure out what they think about that, and that is a natural process that every adult has to go through. But for them it’s sort of like being smashed right there, right in that moment, like, oh my goodness, this is way different than I thought it was and that’s so easy to take them out of that moment in the present and so often the more that we can do to be present, and by that I mean.

John Martinez: 36:13

I say it a lot, but by that I just mean like I’m not worried about what I’m doing 20 minutes from now, a year from now, if I’m going to be successful 40 years from now, am I going to still be married 30 years from now? Am I going to die at 70 or die at 40? I don’t know. I don’t know any of that. But if I sit here thinking about it all the time and I’m doing nothing but making plans about all these things that I can’t control and all these things that I can’t predict, then I’m going to miss on just being here right now enjoying this conversation and for me like right now.

John Martinez: 36:38

I’m just here having this conversation.

John Martinez: 36:40

I love it, and I feel like when I have my conversations with my students, I’m not thinking about my next student, I’m thinking about just having that conversation with that student.

John Martinez: 36:46

And that’s how we end up having 40, 50, and hour long conversations, because it’s so easy to be like oh my goodness, tell me more about that, and what do you mean by that? And how was that affecting you? And then you find that they’re here too. Cause they’re not worrying about that exam they have to take tomorrow? Or the fact that they don’t know how to ask for help, or the fact that they failed that exam the other day and they don’t know what to do, or they’re on probation, or their parents don’t know they were struggling. You know, and I think a lot of that just comes down to our ability to practice mindfulness as much as we can, and there’s so many resources out there for how to do this, like yoga and meditation and breathing techniques, and there’s a lot of different ways and we highlighted some of them that, like, advisors, could do in the office. But, like I mean, some parents already they go to the gym, they meditate, they do all these things and they might find that they can be present in the moment that they’re doing those things, but how do you then be present even when you’re not necessarily doing those things. How do you find it so that you can, when a student comes home and they come home for the break and you’re caught up in your job and things that you’re doing.

John Martinez: 37:51

you’re used to not having them in the house. All of a sudden, they show up and they’re talking about an experience they had in school. How do you slow down as a parent so that you can just, in that moment, take an hour, take 15 minutes, do whatever go out for a walk, go out for ice cream, do whatever and just sit in that moment and have a conversation with them about what is college really mean for them? Do they feel pressure in college? Do they feel pressured because of something you have said? Do they feel pressured because of something that you’ve done?

John Martinez: 38:17

This is not coddling them. This is just being able to be there for them and be there with them and have them listen to you, the things that you go through. Be honest with them about what that looks like, so that they can go. Oh, my parent does want to hear me. They were just really busy back then or they were just thinking about something else back then, as opposed to my parents don’t care what I’m doing, so I don’t care to tell them what’s happening, and that happens. We have those conversations so often that I feel like the more that we can practice those moments of just being there is really important.

Vicki Nelson: 38:46

And easier said than done. Yes, especially in moments of high anxiety, which often do happen when students come home from break and all. Do you have any? Either of you have any suggestions of a couple of kinds of questions that can be that can open the door to some of these conversations or ways of starting conversations that say I’m here, I’m present.

John Martinez: 39:18

You know, it’s so funny because, like when I first learned about student development theory, it seemed so obvious because it started with ask them how they are, ask them where they’re at. Questions that like we ask all the time but we don’t always stop and actually listen to the answer.

So you ever walk down the hallway and say, hey, how are you? And they go oh, how are you?

John Martinez: 39:36

I’m great and you know, and it’s really, I don’t think there’s a one question, and Zach could also point this to. I don’t think there’s necessarily one question that you can ask. I think it’s the quality of the questions, like of the conversation that you’re having. And I remember I read in a book one time it said don’t wait to speak. And so often in conversation you might be talking about something, and it triggered something in my mind and now I’m waiting to say the thing that I want to say and I’m no longer listening to you say the thing that you’re saying and we do that a lot.

John Martinez: 40:07

I’ve done it with my own family. I’ve done it with you know, and you’re so geared up for what you’re saying that you completely didn’t even listen for the rest of what they said. And I think sometimes, if let’s say, a student is talking to a parent and the student is saying something and the parent is like whoa whoa no what.

John Martinez: 40:17

I’m trying to say is so I think, instead of looking for sort of the types of questions, it’s more of like let the thought go out, let the thought, let the entire thought come out before coming up with an opinion on it. If you find yourself like, oh, I want to say, you know what, let me set that aside and let me continue listening to what they’re saying so I can see if I really understand what they’re saying, and then say, hey, I’m what I’m hearing from you. Is this, does that seem like what you’re actually saying? And if there isn’t a consensus there to really try and sort of, in that moment, try and figure out what that is, because if you leave it with just like, yeah, that’s fine, whatever, and it’s not really what they meant, then you have those misconceptions and misunderstandings that lead to conversation breaking down, and I think, the more that you can be like I really want to hear what you have to say. For the next hour, it’s just you and me. Or for the next 20 minutes, it’s just you and me.

John Martinez: 41:10

I really want to know, and, without judgment, listen first and then have a conversation about how does that make you feel, though, when you’re in college and you feel pressure because of what I said. How does it feel? Does it affect your work? Does it affect your classes? Does it affect how you’re doing exams? Do you find yourself? Did you meet people? Have you met anybody yet? Do you find it hard meeting people in school? Well, here’s some of the things I did to meet some people. Maybe you could try those you know and have. We’re all human. Like it’s not like a parent is less human than a student. I think we just need to think back to those moments when we had those struggles and may not be the same struggles, but we had struggles you know, to be able to do some of that.

Vicki Nelson: 41:48

It’s really interesting because it it it makes sense and and you know, don’t wait to speak is a great way of putting it. I, you know, I always talk about don’t listen with the intent to respond, which is the same thing, and most of the people, I think, who are listening to the podcast are, you know, either college parents already or they have a student headed to college, and it strikes me that in a lot of instances, parents who do this are going to be amazed at the results that they can get, but and it’s going to for many families it’s going to be the first time this has happened, and so it may take a little time of everyone adjusting a little and students being a little bit skeptical at first, because this has not been our mode of operating for now.

John Martinez: 42:52

And that happens to us, right? Because not every student trusts us implicitly and that happens to us, right, because not every student trusts us. And Zach and I were talking earlier about like we definitely have a list of students that may or may not think that we’re doing things well, you know. I mean, like everybody has those students that like they just don’t necessarily connect that way, but sometimes it just takes time. I had a student that for two years we talked via zoom and the conversation just never went anywhere and I kept saying, if she just comes in one time, just in person, one time, I think we can get there.

John Martinez: 43:15

And finally, two years in, she came in just randomly and we had like an hour conversation and it was like she was like oh, this is what you meant this, and it was like the first time in two years that we were able to finally have that conversation. But we recognized that, like we weren’t having that conversation before and that was okay, you know, yeah, it could.

John Martinez: 43:35

would. It be great if it did? It would be awesome if you could get to be honest 100 percent all the time. Yeah, but people are people and I feel like having some information is better than having none at all and having some relationship is better than having none at all. And for students that parental relationship is so important to the college experience. If they know you’re OK at home, they can let themselves loose at school.

John Martinez: 43:55

And if they don’t, or if they feel like they need to be responsible for what’s happening both at home and at school, whether it’s meaning to or not, then it’s going to be really hard to feel like they don’t want to waste quote unquote time. It’s like how can you waste time it’s got? You’re just discovering yourself. There’s no way to waste time discovering yourself. That’s just life, and I think so many times if we can’t sort of get out of that way, it gets really hard for them.

John Martinez: 44:22

So I think it’s really like it’s okay that it takes time, it’s okay that if it never happens the way that you want it to, or the relationship is never what you want it to be, it’s just to be there. That’s our job, right Is to be there, without, without judgment, to be there for them and to just help them navigate their experiences and again, always easier said than done and that’s the work that we have to do ourselves. They have to do the work for doing, being more present themselves and being in college and doing whatever, and then we have to do the work to recognize when we are standing in their way because we’re helping, we’re not letting them do what they need to be doing.

Zachary DesJardins: 44:56

Yeah, and I think also to add on that too as well, I think with mindfulness, it’s all about practice. You know, like I’m a musician, I love playing music, and so I try to tell people like, hey, when you first pick something that you were really good at right now and so for me I would say bass guitar, because I love playing bass guitar and I was like I was never good when I first picked up my bass guitar. How did I get good? I practiced day in and day out. It’s not about being perfect. It’s like practice over perfection. You know what I mean, and so I tell my students, when it comes to mindfulness, it’s the same thing. There’ll be times when I recognize myself. I’m like, oh man, I am not being present whatsoever, and I need to divert back. I need to work on those types of things and admitting those that like you’re not going to be perfect every single time, but as long as you put the effort in, that’s what matters.

Vicki Nelson: 45:28

And I think that’s what’s important, and I think students, if it’s the parent that’s working at that, students will recognize the effort. Yeah, exactly, and and that that goes a long long way.

John Martinez: 45:50

Our children are very perceptive and I don’t think we give them enough credit for being able to pick up on the things that we think we’re hiding really well.

John Martinez: 45:59

You know that they are and again, that’s you see in the essays that they’re giving out information that I’m like I don’t even know if their parents even know. They’re saying this stuff to people that they don’t even know. You know, because it is stuff that stands out to them and they’re paying attention and they’re they’re looking at what their families are doing and they’re looking what their friends are doing and their teachers and advisors, and they’re making their own judgments and I’d rather them be able to have the conversation about how to clear up any misunderstandings rather than sort of live with those and feel like that they weren’t able to be the people they wanted to be because of it.

Vicki Nelson: 47:00

Yeah, and you know it’s a little bit of it is counterintuitive, I think, because we’re, as a Western society, we’re very much go, go, go and do and be active and and what you’re talking about, it is active. I mean that’s why, Zachary, what you’re saying about practicing matters, it is active but it feels as though it’s not. We so often think of listening as a passive thing rather than actively being present, and so for parents to think about the way to better work at supporting my student, the way to be better engaged with my student, is to take a step back and not do so much. It takes a little while to wrap your head around it.

Zachary DesJardins: 47:23

Yeah exactly and kind of like. I came from a household from a modest income and so basically I remember, even just talking to my dad one day and my dad’s like Zach, I’m just tired. I remember he was talking about we were struggling with some things that were going on personally, financially. I’m just tired. I just don’t know if I could just hit the reset button again.

Zachary DesJardins: 47:45

It’s like how, when you’re working with first-gen students not ever someone coming from a low-income background, but let’s say you are working for someone who has more of a modest income household how do you convince someone where, if you don’t see something tangible, it’s not there, you know, because you don’t even know where the next meal is going to come from. Now you’re trying to tell them to think about like hey, don’t worry about your future, when they don’t even know where the next meal is going to be happening or how they’re going to get that or how they’re going to get the money to pay for their books. And I think that’s the hardest part and, like you mentioned before, Vicki, is like we’re a very go, go, go society, very active, and things have to be tangible. And if things are not tangible, they’re not real. But it’s like no, this is real. This is a real society.

John Martinez: 48:24

To your point, Zach, and this goes back to not just the challenges and the challenging bits of like they’re worried about the next meal and so on. This is I had a student come in who had just recently gotten into med school through an early assurance program. It basically like a early graduation, automatically admitted into med school program, and she was a walk-in student. She wasn’t mine, she’s kind of walked in and she was like, so I’m watching my major because I wanted to do this. And I just got into med school and just wanted to do it. And I was like, hold on one second, what did you just say? And she was like, oh, I just got into med school, but like I’m asking about my major and I want to find out.

John Martinez: 48:53

I was like we’ll get to that in a second. What do you mean? You just got into med school, like what does that mean? And she was like well, I got into med school because of early assurance and it was cool, and I was like wow like that’s amazing.

John Martinez: 49:11

And she was like yeah, yeah,  but I want to talk about my major, and I said wait a second, just humor me for a moment, just humor me for a moment, just sit with me in this room and just let’s just you know, I have students who will not go to med school. I have students who right now will not go to med school. I have students who want to go that can’t go. They either can’t afford it or they don’t have the grades and they just won’t be able to go there. I have students who, since birth, have wanted to and they made a decision to change. I have so many students that are not going to be in the position that you’re in.

John Martinez: 49:33

How amazing is it that you’re in? You did it Like you’re done, like you did the thing that was great. And she was like yeah, I guess that’s true. And I was like yeah, but no, no, but think about it right. Like you right now have one less thing to worry about on your road to becoming a doctor, and this was a huge step forward.

John Martinez: 49:53

But the problem is, if you’re just in the go, go, go, go, go, like you were just saying, then when you become a doctor, will you actually appreciate the fact that you became a doctor, or will it be what’s the next thing that I have to do and what’s the next thing I have to do? Now that I became a doctor, I got to win an award. Now that I won an award, I have to do this. How about we let that stuff sit over there and for just one moment, we just sit here and we just sit with the fact that you got into med school and she sat back and was like huh, you know, I never really thought about it for the next hour. We talked about her love of music and books. We talked about the fact that she had she talked to admissions in the med school that she got into and she asked how did I get in and what, like what, got accepted?

John Martinez: 50:35

and they go well, your good grades are good grades, everybody has good grades, so no one cared about that. What we really liked were the bits of your personality in your essay and I was like amazing that you got yourself into med school. That’s phenomenal. I didn’t do it. Guys didn’t do it. You did that. Your personality, who you are as a human being, did that and we ended that hour just.

John Martinez: 50:54

It was a great conversation and and she, we did the thing that she wanted to do originally and I was like I hope I didn’t keep you too long. I hope that you know whatever and she goes no, no, honestly, thank you so much for this conversation, because I had never actually stopped to appreciate that I had done this and and she was like a 3.9. So it was like amazing, all this stuff was amazing and she was like so I really appreciate you know you’re doing that. She’s a first-gen college student and you know part of an underrepresented population and I was like you did things that people could only dream of doing and this is just step one. I have no doubt you’re gonna do amazing things, but I really need you to just make sure that you’re always checkpointing yourself to be like wow, I did this thing and as much as we talk about the fact they might not be present for the bad things, even the good things, like Zach always talked about when he graduated, and it was like a relief and supposed to just wow.

John Martinez: 51:43

It was like I did this great thing, that, like it’s, you can miss the good things too if you’re not being.

Zachary DesJardins: 51:50

Exactly. Can I say one quick thing about that, too Vicki if you don’t mind? Yeah, like to kind of add on that. That’s what I was going to say is that, like I had one of my students who was a first proud first-gen graduate. Now he’s now going to his dream law school and everything he told me and I could probably tell you hear the loud scream coming from my office came from both the student and myself just want to probably say that, uh, yeah, and when you cross the stage you know, I saw him and he was actually smiling and I told him, like you know, what’s so amazing about this is like you know how many first generation college student graduates cross this stage and they just go, oh, I did it. And they have a giant sigh of relief.

Zachary DesJardins: 52:29

That’s not what you want to hear. When you have the best accomplishment your whole entire life, you want to do what you did, where you were cheering, you were shouting, you know where you may have a little emotional cry, you know in a good way yeah, you know I mean the positive way, you know, that emotional release, all that types of stuff.

Zachary DesJardins: 52:44

And it’s like that’s what I want to see from my students and I even tell that to my students, too, in my first gen class like my goal is for by the end of your four years here if if it takes you four years to graduate is that you’re going to look back on your experience and it’s not just going to be a performative checkbox. Instead, this is going to be a life-changing experience that you’re going to inspire so many other people to come after you and now that also inspire other first-gen students who I never got to bump into. You know what I mean.

Zachary DesJardins: 53:10

One of my favorite quotes is we only rise when we lift each other up, and I love that quote because it’s so true, because it’s like now we’re doing the great work. Now you know, like John Martinez and I, we’re doing all this great, awesome work and we’re also lifting other people, and those other people are lifting other people that surround them, other classmates. But we can only do it when we truly focus on the moment. So don’t just accomplish with a check, mark the box. You don’t make it just to be a sigh of relief be this and give it the weight that deserves to celebrate your great accomplishment. And that’s why I try to tell my students to all the time. So it’s just amazing. So, John, glad you mentioned because that’s really what I was going to bring up is don’t make things a sigh of relief, you know. Make them to celebrate them as what they deserve and the weight they have, you know you know, as we’re recording this, this is.

Vicki Nelson: 53:53

This is toward the end of July and I still have a month of vacation left before school starts, but now I don’t want to wait. You are be making me want to want to go and meet with my students. So so much for the rest of my summer vacation

Zachary DesJardins: 54:11

yeah, she’s not here focused on present. She’s only focused on meeting with her students.

Vicki Nelson: 54:15

I know, I know you get a few advisors talking together and it could go on for a long time and one of the things maybe, as we sort of begin to wrap up here that you shared when you did your presentation for NACADA and I know it was geared toward advisors to think about who first-gen students are, but you had a couple of case studies that you shared with the audience of a couple of students, which really helped, I think, help us as advisors, think about who these students are. But I think it would be helpful to parents as well, and I think that some of the people who listen to this podcast also are professionals who work with students. So can you share those couple of case studies with us as a as a way to pull some of this together?

John Martinez: 55:12

Yeah, so with one of the students that we talked about. It was he was a student who sort of really went to college never really thinking about what college was. First generation student kind of just picked a college randomly and thinking about, like going into college, sort of have those conversations about like, ah, just kind of picking things that were interesting and and never really thought about like what the future necessarily held, um, but mostly had a lot of other things on the mind.

John Martinez: 55:43

Uh oh, he would always talk about dating and meeting people and socializing and just kind of like wanting to get more out of, sort of like just meeting people and kind of being the college experience I guess, found himself sort of. He was working on a project in his senior year and he the project was kind of like a bit outside his comfort zone in terms of like what he was able to do and sort of talk all the time about what that means and how do you complete that?

John Martinez: 56:11

And he didn’t really realize at the time, I think that he was first gen, so he kind of just had gotten to where he was just in doing things, never really thought about being first gen, but then kind of hit this roadblock of like here’s this senior project he has to work on, and the other students in the class seemed to kind of know what they were doing, but he didn’t, and so he sort of had a hard time figuring out how to write this big paper that you had to write and how to do research and how to do all that stuff.

John Martinez: 56:38

And so he kind of kept putting it off because it was like it was a bit too much, I think, to think about at the time, and so he would kind of put it off and always talk about how you should really do it, really do it. But then you’d be like, oh good, good, good and. But it’s almost like he seems sort of too embarrassed to ask for help and his family didn’t really know what he was doing in college because they weren’t really college graduates and so he didn’t really know how to ask for them. So he was kind of just doing this on his own and the deadline for it came up. It was actually like the last semester that he was here and it was like pushing it off and then graduation came, still hadn’t finished the paper and then, like a month after graduation came still hadn’t finished the paper.

John Martinez: 57:14

And then, like a month after graduation came, still doesn’t have his diploma because he still hasn’t finished the paper.

John Martinez: 57:19

And the professor kept asking him like hey, can you submit it, can you submit it? And he really almost didn’t graduate at all because he didn’t submit it until the very, very last, very last moment and to this day, I think, still says it’s like the worst piece of writing he’s ever done. But um, you know, he, he really didn’t have a lot of opportunities to. I guess he might have had a lot of opportunities to ask, but he just didn’t take advantage because he didn’t notice them, he didn’t recognize them, he didn’t realize that he needed to.

John Martinez: 57:46

Um, but he, he really almost put his entire college sort of in jeopardy just because he wasn’t prepared to sort of have these conversations about asking for help and not knowing what to do, and this was sort of way outside of his comfort zone.

John Martinez: 58:01

He didn’t know. You know that he was anxious about it, and so it really was an example of, even in instances where things aren’t going crazy difficult or crazy bad, that, like it, affects everyone differently, in different ways and and sometimes it might not come up all the way until the end uh, sometimes it comes up right when you first get to college, and sometimes it comes up in grad school, uh, and so a lot of times it’s like you, you never really know when it’s going to show up. But being first gen and the issues associated with being first gen can affect all of us at any time. Um, that sort of imposter syndrome, what that looks like, um can be really detrimental for a lot of people, and so I think it’s sort of a good example of like what, on a sort of like more benign sort of way, how it can really kind of be, how do you say it can really sort of poison that experience.

Vicki Nelson: 58:48

When you least expect it.

John Martinez: 58:49

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Zachary DesJardins: 58:51

Yeah, and I had a student. I remember one student was like literally during their fall semester, their very first semester, and I remember they were talking about how their father just abruptly lost their job. Their father got laid off just because they were trying to cut down, I guess I want to say in the area His dad worked for, like basically as a pest elimination, and basically what they were trying to do was rezone all the districts and unfortunately the zone they worked in got cut. So his dad actually ended up losing his job and that was a primary source of income for most of his family, not on top of that, but, um, also their well that they had, because they had a well at their house, because he grew up in a very rural area, their well ended up running dry and so that ended up happening to his well, so they were out without water throughout a week. You know what I mean. And basically because he went to college, you know, and it was his very first semester, very big semester, what ended up happening is his parents kind of looked at him as like more the pioneer and like, looked at him as like, oh, this is the person like the prodigal son is, you know going off and they basically would call him frequently, nonstop, just being like like, hey, we need you to help. You know you are a voice of reason. You’re going to college like you’re Mr smart guy. You know I mean things like that, Mr college and everything. And so just kind of having that on itself we’re talking about, like you know, parents, you know, I mean I even the positive side, you know can sometimes weigh a lot on these students, you know, because they are looked at as the scene of, like the hope, like they’re going to help their family get out of this situation. You know, and that’s why they’re putting all this weight in college and they’re carrying that with them.

Zachary DesJardins: 1:00:18

You know, and I remember even just like talking with the student and just trying to work through them and just trying to be like, hey, you can get through this, you know, I mean like, use this experience. And one thing I think was really important was, um, he mentioned that one person actually told him was like use this, this experience, and what you’re going through, what does it feel like? And I remember the student said it felt horrible, it felt disgusting. He’s like good, remember that, because then one day, when you get a job and you’re working with people, you’re going to bump into someone who’s just like you, and I want you to remember that negative feeling. So when you have that student who’s going to work with you, don’t make them have that negative feeling again. Open that, open your heart, open that door for that student. Don’t become the gatekeeper. You know, because you know how rough it was to go through this and that’s why you’re here. That’s what you need to work with this person and because only then you know community students truly learn from those things, and so I think that’s what’s really important. That’s why the students have really kind of helped him.

Zachary DesJardins: 1:01:13

Moving forward was knowing that, like someone actually saw inside of him someone that he had, that he never realized that he had, but also someone who was also willing to empathize with the struggle, even though this person admitted, like the person he talked to, wasn’t a first-gen grad himself, you know. So all these great things, I think it doesn’t really matter where you come from or who you talk to. Just be that opening ear, focus in on the moment and encourage these students to be like hey, yes, you may be coming through a lot of stuff, there may be a lot of things going on in the background, but if we can just focus on the moment and use this negative feeling that we have and channel into something that’s more positive, that’s what’s going to change the game moving forward. So, yeah.

Vicki Nelson: 1:01:49

And I think thinking about both of those students is going to help both parents and professionals. You know whether, whatever’s going on, Can you tell us anything more about those two students?

John Martinez: 1:02:06

Yeah. Surprise. They’re us and our experiences, and honestly, I think for both of us us, that’s one of the reasons why we got together in in doing this too. Uh, he does a lot of work. Zach does a lot of work with first gen students and, um, I did sort of not, I didn’t do anything in first gen really before we sort of talked about it, except for just I was first gen but I didn’t realize I was first gen until grad school.

John Martinez: 1:02:28

and uh, until I realized that, like oh man, this whole time I’ve been first gen and but when looking back at a lot of the things that Zach had talked about, especially in talking about how first generation college students dealt with things and then what would sort of help support them, the only reason I got that far was because of actually and I’ll give her credit Stacy Zyskowski, who is like an advisor here at the university, but she was an office manager at the time in sociology who took the time.

John Martinez: 1:02:54

I used to work there as a work study and she would always talk to me about life, about school, about my family, about her family. She was at my wedding. She knows my family, she knows everybody. She was the one person who really took the time to listen to me and I didn’t know I needed that because I didn’t know that it mattered, but it was because I could always go to her that I didn’t actually need it anywhere else. I had someone on campus who was that sort of central point.

John Martinez: 1:03:24

And I was close to my family.

But my family didn’t know what I was doing. They didn’t know what college was, they didn’t know what was going on. And you know, I came also from a modest income. I had a single mom and she was working two jobs. I’m not a single mom and she was working two jobs and a lot of it was just like we just need to go to college. That’s what people do and without taking that into account, I just it didn’t hit me too much later on in my undergrad career when I started to realize there were there were gaps in my knowledge about how to succeed through college that have affected me in grad school, still in trying to finish grad school, that until really talking to Zach about first gen and what the real sort of the issues to think about are, I hadn’t really ever thought about in my own life and then looking back and being like, oh damn that is. That is what happened, and, oh man, imagine if I would have had that, that inclination then to do that thing.

John Martinez: 1:04:06

Um then I wouldn’t have, barely almost not graduated, because and I did well in school it was just that one thing. I just it was the Achilles heel that I I didn’t know how to ask for help, and that has been a pervasive thing in my life for a long time. And so in thinking about this presentation, it was like, oh man, that was, it was such a big part of my life that I was so embarrassed by the time I graduated Cause it didn’t really notice it until much later because just there wasn’t no one really talked about first gen. No one talked to me as a first gen. No one had no one talked to me about what that meant or what it looked like. I thought it was just like everybody else, and it turned out that there was just some part that I was missing.

Zachary DesJardins: 1:04:51

Yeah, and o today, like uh, John Martinez mentioned, my person is actually truly me. Um, I was a student. I explained, but one thing I think is actually really unique about my situation was I wasn’t going to college when this was happening. Um, I did a kind of a few challenges, but the story I’m talking about actually happened my first year on the job, actually a couple of months in, So what ended up happening is I actually started my job in June of 2020 and I remember the situation I explained to you before actually happened back home to my family and I actually already graduated.

Zachary DesJardins: 1:05:22

My dad’s like, oh, Zach, we really need, we really need your help. You know we need you to go back home. I know you just accepted the job at U Albany, you know me, but right now you’re two and a half hours away from home. We need you to come back back home. You know you got to help us out. You know we’re really struggling and all that stuff, and I know my parents didn’t mean it to be malicious or be rude and stuff, but that’s how it is in my family. We’re very close. You know what I mean. We really want to help each other succeed. It meant like well, how do we get out of this? How do we figure this out? My boss at the time, you know, a shout out to Mike Giroux. I love you, fam. He literally said we were on a Zoom call and he just said hey, I just noticed, like you, know you’re a little out of it right now, you know, is everything okay?

Zachary DesJardins: 1:06:03

And I was like, yeah, I kind of want to talk to you if that’s okay. And so I literally went up to his office and had a Zoom call because unfortunately it’s in the midst of COVID and I literally talked to my Mike. I’m just want to say thanks for the offer. This has been amazing. I learned a lot even with only working here for the first two months. But I got to go back home you know what I mean and I said thank you for so much for this opportunity, but I just can’t work here anymore. And I remember that conversation I had with Mike was really one of the most like life changing conversations I’ve had maybe I would say five life-changing conversations I can really remember to a T. That was one of them and, like I mentioned before, Mike literally sat me down and was like hey, remember that, you know that feeling that you feel you know what I mean.

Zachary DesJardins: 1:06:44

You’re going to have other students that are going to come to you and they’re going to feel the same exact thing and that’s why you’re here. You’re here as an advisor because you could basically relate to these students on so much more of a personal lens than you’ll ever imagine. He’s like don’t throw away this awesome, amazing opportunity because you’re trying to fix things. You know what I mean back home and focus right now on the present, think about all the amazing things you’re doing right now and that’s what’s going to lead you forward. And honestly, he was right.

Zachary DesJardins: 1:07:10

You know what I mean and I see that every single day, every single time I work with these students, I’m like, oh my god, I’m just reminded of my why and I’m very privileged to have that is that every single day I work with these students, I’m always remembered of my why and why I’m here. You know I mean John Martinez. You know he’s literally my neighbor in my house. I find that he’s literally like right over there you know so you’d probably hear me right now and all our conversations.

Zachary DesJardins: 1:07:32

But, like even people like John Martinez, I learned so much from you know, this is my very first job here at U Albany, post grad. You know what I mean. I had a job before but I lost it unfortunately due to um, but he’s not getting the great renew, but this is my first full-time been at my job, love my job. It’s amazing. I’m like I’m truly living the dream, like I joke around to it all the time. But I I learned people from the John Martinez.

I remember, told me he’s like hey, dude, why don’t you just feel like? Do you ever just like feel like you’re very like, go, go, go, go, go, go? But do you ever just like sit down and actually like feel? And I’m not gonna lie, at the moment I’m like I really don’t know. Like you know what I mean, what does that even mean? Until one day when I literally was talking to him and I really had an existential crisis you’re welcome I felt like in his office and I was like, oh my gosh, I I don’t know what that like is to feel.

Zachary DesJardins: 1:08:23

I don’t know what that’s like, and so I’m like I’m imagining I’m trying to tell my students how to feel, so certain amongst your uncertainty, but I can’t even do that myself yeah you’re, and so to me, like that was just a groundbreaking thing and I was like that’s when I need to work and I’ve worked on and ever since then I was like it’s opened up my eyes, not only physical to physical things, but like beyond the metaphysical you know, into, like students, emotions, the feelings I feel, like that connection I have with my students is just so much more greater, and even the reason about how my colleagues like I mean, John, do you mind if I put you on blocks a little bit,

John Martinez:

but like you already did, like six times,

Zachary DesJardins: 1:08:59

okay, okay, but like there was like there was like.

So that like one time I remember John told me, like he’s like you said, but you’re doing such great work he’s like, he’s like you, even made me realize I’m actually a proud first-gen graduate and I’ve never said that. Remember that, John, when you told me that like you’re like, you made me realize that what I accomplished was actually a great thing, and so we learned from each other, and that’s why we decided to do this presentation, because it’s like I learned from John’s specialty through the impermanence, but he’s also learned a lot from my advocacy and my knowledge of first gen students and we thought it only made sense to kind of combine it together. But why? I’m here to tell you that one story is that like if we truly give those students that one person, it all it takes is that one person to truly make a difference.

Zachary DesJardins: 1:09:41

Mike could have easily went up to me as a supervisor about like Zach, I really appreciate you saying that, but nope, no, can do. Go ahead, go off, do your thing, don’t come back. You know what I mean. Instead, he went up to me, was like no, Zach, use this moment and use it to inspire other people we can do this anymore our students. And that literally changed the whole trajectory of my life. I’ve now been at U Albany for four years, you know a little over four years now, four years in a month, and I never would have been able to even tell you that if I would have had that one moment with Mike before, I could have been gone by now. But I’m still here four year and a half years later, and that’s when it’s so true, so many words celebrating. So yeah, that was a really long experience

Vicki Nelson: 1:10:16

I think these stories and your your story is really pulled together, what you’ve been talking about throughout all of this, and I would like to keep going forever, but I suspect.

Vicki Nelson: 1:10:32

I think I listened to but you know your bottom line of being there and being present, whether you’re a parent or whether you’re a professional working and being that you know knowing that you could be that one person for a student and that one person could be a parent or it could be someone else and helping them to take the time in the moment and I love your two stories that you know really illustrate how different the experience can be and how different the timetable can be of when it might impact you. So I think parents have something to take away, something really profound that’s hard work and might require some practice and some homework on the part of parents, but that the payoff is huge

John Martinez: 1:11:37

For everyone because we all get something For everyone If we can be present, they can be present. Then we can all sort of get something more out of that experience.

Vicki Nelson: 1:11:43

So I really want to thank both of you for taking time I know summer is a busy time in the advising office and for sharing your personal stories and sharing your perspectives.We’ll do some show notes and tell us just as we finish up. Tell us if people would like to contact you, how can they contact you, and just very quickly, I don’t know, Zachary, you mentioned NAADA. You want to tell us anything quickly about information or contact that I can put in the show notes? Yeah, I mean, I think.

John Martinez: 1:12:22

Zachary, we’re going to send. We’re going to send. I know we both have LinkedIn, okay you can send me stuff, yeah, so like email or phone. I’m usually like around the office, especially in the summertime, but I mean, I definitely don’t. I love talking about this stuff.

John Martinez: 1:12:39

I’ll talk about it. Obviously, we’ve been talking for a while. So if you ever want to talk more about what that looks like, or even just our experiences with students, to see if they kind of parallel some of the students or some of like your students that are going into school now, the kids that are going into school now Like you, you know we have a lot, we thousands of students. We’ve already advised them. So, um, we have a lot of stories about, like those instances with students. So we’re always okay.

Vicki Nelson:

So we will put all of that contact and information about nakata um in the show notes thank you so much to thank you, Zachary DeJardins, I have to show off my French again, and John Martinez, both from the Advising and Academic Support Center at the State University of New York at Albany. Thank you so much for joining us today.