Someone goes first in every family.

No matter how many generations of college graduates come before the latest to receive their diploma, one of them took that journey without knowing the destination.

That’s why the John Chambers College of Business and Economics is ready to support the unique needs of first-generation students. No matter what life throws their way, they can find a home in Reynolds Hall.

These are the stories of three first-gen business students who overcame incredible challenges to make their mark as Mountaineers. And true to the Mountaineer spirit, they’re telling the stories themselves.

Rahat Arefy

Marketing student
Morgantown, WV

I haven’t talked to my parents since I was 18. I was broke. I was a volunteer EMT at a fire department and couldn’t afford college.

One of the guys in my department told me he’d get me kicked out if I didn’t visit WVU. He gave me money for gas and made me go to orientation. I was like, "Am I really about to turn down this opportunity?"

I didn’t know what to expect. You come out here, you’re living on your own. You manage your own schedule, you feed yourself, you get yourself to class.

I wanted to pursue medicine – that’s been my dream ever since I was a kid. I did two semesters of biomedical engineering and dropped out. It was mostly money issues, since I was financially supporting myself. I was trying to figure out how to avoid going home.

I got a temp job at a local company, and then a year in, I got hired on full time. I worked there for three years and got laid off when they closed. 

When I was out of a job, I started a clothing brand with a couple of friends. Marketing and distribution and channel analysis were our biggest weaknesses, because none of us had a background in that. I said, "OK, I can study marketing and just throw the premed classes on top."

What you learn in business are management skills, people skills. The things I’m learning in business will enable me to be a leader in medicine in the future. Patient compliance, patient education – that’s marketing.

My biggest concern when I was coming back was that I hadn’t been a student for so long. When was the last time I wrote a paper? Would I be able to connect with my peers, coming back as an older student?

Susan Catanzarite was super key, going step by step with me to make sure I could go back to school. Mike Hardt was a great professor. I feel very connected to the people who are running things here.

There’s a lot of resources for first-gen students. The Becker Academic Engagement Success Center – I use that space a lot. It’s nice to be able to go every day after class and bang some work out.

Going to college has been a very positive experience. If you look at the long-term trend lines, there are fluctuations, but the fact is I didn’t know a lot when I came here initially, and I know a lot more now.

The best thing about being a first-gen student is also the worst thing: you can do whatever you want. There are benefits from having someone who’s walked the path before, but guardrails can be frustrating if you want to go outside them. There’s flexibility for you to pursue whatever you’re passionate about.

Rahat Arefy, now in his senior year, has been accepted to medical school and will start in Fall 2025.

Read more about Rahat.

Jada Brooks

General Business graduate
Martinsburg, WV

My grandfather, who passed away in 2012, was the biggest die-hard West Virginia fan in the whole entire world. When I came to Morgantown, this weird feeling came over me, and I felt comfortable being here.

When I got to the Coliseum, they had that Jerry West statue outside. He was my grandpa’s favorite player. I got my mom to take the picture of me beside the statue, and I felt like my grandpa was on the other side of the statue with me.

I looked at my mom and said, "I’m going to have to stay here. I can’t leave."

I worked two jobs while I was in high school. I was already helping my mom pay bills and I was putting groceries in the house, all that stuff. I don’t think people understood how stressed I was about leaving my family in that position.

I prioritized going to work and making sure things were okay back home. I think that played into me going on academic probation. It was embarrassing at first, but then I thought, "You’re on probation because if you don’t get it together, you’re not going to have a reason to go to school."

The first thing I did was write down everything in my syllabus and hang it up in my room so when I walked through the door, before I put my keys down, I’d see what I had to do. In my first meeting with the retention specialist, I told him, "You’re not gonna see me again unless I’m just visiting."

He and Damia Dobbs, my advisor, met up to talk with me together to get me sorted out. They’d just text or email to check up on me, and that made me feel better. They were the best people I could ever ask for. They really went out of their way so I could get to the spot that I’m in now.

I was like, "OK, now I've got people that actually care about what I'm doing. I need to go the extra mile because I'm not just doing this for me anymore."

Junior year was the worst year of my life. I lost my grandma, and my dad was killed. But I was able to keep my head on straight and persevere. And don’t ask me how, but it was my best academic year too. I feel like I have the potential to do a lot. I feel like I could change the world in a heartbeat.

I’m getting my diploma for my dad, who never got his. I’m getting it for my grandma, who had to drop out when she was in ninth grade to take care of her family.

And I’m getting it for my mom and my brother. They’re the reason I do everything in my life.

Jada Brooks graduated with a B.A. in General Business in May 2024 and is pursuing a business career in sports.

Read more about Jada Brooks.

Thao Nguyen 

Accounting student
Morgantown, WV

I was born in the countryside in Vietnam. My parents are both farmers. My father never went to school, and my mother too. She didn't know how to read or write while I was growing up. Nobody in my family had a chance to go to college and finish their degree.

They didn’t expect me to be good academically. I wanted to go to college and study accounting. Then I had a chance to come to the United States, so I stopped my education.

When I got here, I couldn’t do anything because of the Visa process. I couldn’t work or study. I didn’t have a car or a driver’s license. I worried about my accent.

For a long time, I didn’t go outside or talk to people. I realized that wasn’t the life I wanted.

Now I feel like making friends is kind of natural for me. My classmates helped me a lot. English is not my first language, so if the professor said something I didn’t understand, I would ask them to explain it. I always asked my Peer Mentor questions, and she helped me adjust to college.

I met people from other countries who were in the same situation as me. Some people came here because of war. It was hard for them to adjust, because they didn’t choose to leave. When I realized that talking with people wasn’t that scary, I wanted to help them.

I’m so excited to be a Peer Mentor, because I’ll have more time to do that. I really want to see people happy and successful, and make them feel like, "You’re welcome here. You’re safe here."

Professor Neidermeyer is amazing. At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do accounting, but she gave me advice on how to be successful in the major and in life. I’ll be her Neidermeyer Scholar next year. I’m excited to help her work with students.

I want to be able to take care of myself and help people around me. I hope that one day I can support myself and help my mother, who learned to read and write only recently, get her education. My father and my brother, too.

I love the person I’ve become today. I’ve built a lot of good relationships with people, improved my communication skills and tried multiple jobs. I feel like this place changed me into a better person.

And I love snow. I never saw snow until I came here. It’s so beautiful.

Thao Nguyen is now a sophomore in the Chambers College, serving as both a Neidermeyer Scholar and Peer Mentor.