If you are a first-generation college student — or will be soon — your world is about to expand in a number of ways. According to the Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development, approximately 50 percent of today’s college students are in proud, but uncharted, territory as the first in their family to attend a four-year college or university. Whether you’re getting ready to attend school on campus or online, it’s a big deal.

When she remembers one of the main reasons she chose to pursue her PhD in chemistry at the University of Rochester in New York, Dr. Naomi Lee can’t help but chuckle. After obtaining an undergraduate degree in biochemistry at the Rochester Institute of Technol­ogy, Dr. Lee applied to a number of graduate programs and was accepted to them all. “I chose the University of Rochester because I was afraid to leave home,” she says. “I was afraid to leave for other schools because they were far from the reservation.”