First Generation College Students: The Dreamer
First generation college student Dontay Gray. (Photo courtesy First Generation)
This is the final of three interviews in RealClearEducation’s coverage of first generation college students. Read the first two student interviews here and here.
Dontay Gray was a star football and track athlete – he was one of the fastest high school linemen in the country and was among the strongest candidates for college recruiters. He traveled an hour and a half each way to school, taking 3 buses and 2 trains to attend Los Angeles’ Jordan High School and participate in its top football program. But that was only a short time after he spent half a year in juvenile detention for illegal possession of a firearm at the age of 15, and faced another 13 years in prison.
Those months in juvie were Gray’s wake-up call, inspiring him to seek a way out of the gang and drug-dealing life he was involved in. When he was released, Gray went through rehabilitation and was connected with a mentor, who talked to him about college as a way out of a budding criminal cycle.
“My mentor told me it was possible for me to go to college. Before that I never thought I could get to college with my grades in high school,” Gray said. “But once I found out I could, I did everything in my power to travel to go to college, to get out of the neighborhood, and to expand my knowledge.”
Gray also had a tough life at home. He was estranged from his mother, who spent 24 years addicted to alcohol, cocaine, and other drugs. The two reunited through a community program that helped her sober up and rebuild her life – and the teenager was helping her get better.
Now, Gray is in his sixth year at Sacramento State studying fashion marketing and design and is just five classes away from a May 2015 graduation. He works as a team leader in a community after-school program in Sacramento and was just hired last week to be an intramural sports referee. He’s also thinking about applying to graduate school at an institution with a master’s fashion program or a fashion-based institute.
He’s also $38,000 in debt, and determined to find a “great job” to pay off his student loans.
“I’ve taken so much money from the government, I feel like my education isn’t complete so I’ll need even more money, which means I’ll need to make even more money to pay that off,” Gray said. “I have so much debt it’s ridiculous, but I wouldn’t be here without the loans because no one else could hep me – but I need the education for myself and I see the bigger picture. The biggest regret would be if I took the loans for nothing – if I didn’t graduate – to have all this debt with nothing to show for it. I just need to graduate and my debt will be well worth it.”
RealClearEducation recently caught up with Gray to hear about how education has changed his life since high school, and reflect on his experience as a first generation college student.
Why was college, and an education, so important to you?
At first it wasn’t, but my jail time had me really thinking about my life. I was out there gangbanging and hustling, and it made me realize that I didn’t want to come back – I needed to make a change so I wouldn’t end up back in there.
I wasn’t alone on this journey. I had counselors, mentors – there were a lot of people who were doing everything they could to help me get to college and be highly successful. I will pay everyone back when I make it.
If I didn’t go to college, I’d probably still be in LA doing the same thing I was doing back then and hanging with the wrong crowd, not having the right goals. College has made me think of life in a whole different way, it’s made me be a man. I didn’t think college would change me as much as it has – I knew it’d take me out of the situation I was in, would help my mom out by giving her one less mouth to feed, but it’s changed my life completely. I wanted to start my life, I wanted to do something different, to grow up and get out of there. I even brought my little brother out here three years ago so he could go to college. He didn’t know anything, so I had to show him everything – I took the tools that I learned on my own and passed them along to him.
What was your biggest lesson or takeaway during the college application process?
I would just say that you never know. I didn’t apply to some schools because I was scared I wouldn’t get in. It was the same for Cecilia, Jess and Soma – it was hard, just thinking about applying, because it was so foreign and so difficult. The biggest thing I got out of it was that everyone can use a little help. That’s why mentors are the best: my mentor is the greatest thing in my life, he’s basically a part of the family, I talk to him at least once a month. Without him I wouldn’t be here at all.
A mentor is someone who every young person needs, whether they have parents their life. A mentor is someone who can give a little something extra, a little something different that other people don’t know. My mentor took me to SAT, ACT classes, helped me fill out applications, helped me with football, track, drove me from LA to college on my first day, and came to pick me up from Sacramento on my last day. I wouldn’t be here without his knowledge and his wisdom. Whether a coach, teacher, family friend, anyone who’s been there done that, can make your life that much easier. You can never be too smart for some help.
How did your college experience -- whether complete or incomplete -- shape your current outlook on life, society and economy?
It gave me a little more insight into the world in general. Just being here, the people really motivate me. I see people doing great things and I say, “You know, I want to do that one day, I want to be there.” It lets me know that I can do it, too. Just being here opened my eyes: life has so much to offer and there is so much in this world outside of yourself, but you have to go get it. Nothing is given to you. You have to go put your name on it and do what you want to do.
Being here has improved my confidence, how I see myself and how I perceive the world, it gave me knowledge and a different look at the bigger picture. My bigger picture now is success. College surrounds you with so many people who are like minded. I know I can be successful, I just need to continue to live. I know I have a lot more to do, and I have potential. As long as there is still air flowing through my lungs, I can be successful.
Before college, I’d never been with people who wanted to do big things or wanted to go further in life. Everything was about making a quick dollar or something like that. College is big picture, just the exposure I’ve had, seeing people who are in college and who are not, makes me see how fortunate I am to have even made it to college. I see a lot of my friends and family who are still back there, doing the same thing that they’ve been doing really without goals. It’s opened my eyes to let me know I can be somebody, I can do something if I try. But to get what you want you have to put in the work. The feeling of college is different from working after high school. It’s amazing to see the world in a different light. I can’t really explain it.
Looking back on the entire college application and college-going process, if you could do something over again, what would it be and why?
I really didn’t think anything about college, I never thought I’d be in college, so when I did have a chance to think about it, I didn’t really know what to expect.
My plan was to graduate in general. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to graduate. I’ve already been there for six years, but I could’ve graduated like a year ago. I have a lot of units – like 36 -- on my transcript that are remedial classes or classes that I didn’t need to take. I didn’t really have an idea of how long it would take to graduate because I hadn’t met anyone that really knew about it, so I was basically on my own. If it weren’t for my counselors I’d probably need longer.
Now I know the system, now I know what to do, so the last couple years have been smoother. I’ve been able to study and know how to do my homework and things like that. At first I didn’t know how to live the college life, how to get myself organized. It took me like two years to get the hang of things, but I’ve boosted my GPA tremendously and am now in clubs and organizations.
I’ve also learned that money is the root of a lot of evil in college, and everything in college requires money. Just to change my graduation date from December 2014 to May 2015 so I could have extra time to boost my GPA and enhance my resume for grad school, it cost me $30 just to turn in a piece of paper.
Money was a big issue on everything – from getting to and just staying in college. No matter who you are, money is probably the number one thing you think about before college, when you apply, and even when you’re in college. From parking, to food, to signing a sheet of paper, everything costs money. I even have to pay to graduate, which doesn’t make sense to me – there’s a $65 graduation fee.
Cecilia didn’t even apply for UCLA partially because the application cost $50. Jess – her story kills me the most because she had one of the greatest high school careers – but it was just the money that prevented her from going out and going to a great university, probably in somewhere like New York, where she probably could’ve gotten a full scholarship anyway. But the money scared her off so she settled for community college. Her life would’ve been much different if she had even tried to apply somewhere else.
Are you where you want to be in life right now? Did the college application and college-going process get you here? What do you think you need to do to get where you want to be in five, 10 years?
I never even imagined my life like this before. I am so much better off now than I have been if I didn’t go to college. I’d be broke right now. But now, in a couple years I’ll have a couple degrees and in a higher bracket to get me earning more money in a better job.
I have goals, dreams, and it’s all just right there. I can see everything right there in the near future, and all I have to do is keep making the right decisions and keep going on the path I’ve been going.
Later on I see myself as a director or manager at GUESS, Inc.’s corporate office in downtown LA. I feel I have the skills and knowledge to bring to the table what the company needs. I’ll be there in a couple years with a nice house, all I have to do is continue to work and live. And I’ll be successful because I want to. I will make it happen. I should be back in LA with my family and have a great job – no, career -- and living to the best of my ability. I don’t know if I want to have kids or anything, but I need to have a great life, a great house, a great stable career before I settle down. I have a lot of goals to reach before I settle down, I need to be able to support myself and my family so I can live great.
Sure I have debt, and might have more, but I wouldn’t change going to college for the world.
