I am a first gen student from a rural background in southern Iowa. When I came to Iowa as a freshman, I had no idea what to expect, other than a lot of work. Learning how to navigate the campus, ins and outs of FAFSA, how to manage my time, and everything else was incredibly hard. I am excited to be a First Gen Hawks mentor so I can help students with these questions that I had. I look forward to helping others learn how to succeed at college earlier in their time at Iowa, so they can focus on other aspects of their time here, like gaining research experience and becoming involved in extracurricular activities. My personal areas of interest are geoscience and anthropology. I earned my undergrad degrees in both of those areas at Iowa, and eventually returned to do my PhD in geoscience here as well. I was the first person in my family to earn a graduate degree. Navigating that arena was also a challenge, but it has been an incredible experience.