I came to the U of I as a 1st gen, homeschooled student from a rural part of Iowa (my local high school had a graduating class of about 20 students). It was an exciting, but quite overwhelming experience for me to learn the ropes first of undergraduate life, and now of PhD life. As an undergrad, I had to learn how to search for the right resources, summon the courage to reach out to people, step safely out of my comfort zone (like studying abroad or publishing a translation magazine), and learn validating stuff about myself (I learned that there was a word for my bilingual identity--I am a heritage speaker)! As a teaching assistant in graduate school, I have had the opportunity to work with a variety of awesome international students and linguistics students from diverse backgrounds, and have developed an unexpected investment in being a resource, offering perspectives that I wish I had a few years ago, and also just hearing voices of other students.