First Generation: How Three First-Generation College Students Made It Through Freshman Year

This eye-opening YA narrative nonfiction follows three first-generation college students as they navigate their first year--and ultimately a global pandemic.

Making it through the first year of college is tough. What makes it even tougher is being the first in your family to do so. Who can you turn to when you need advice?

Rising Class follows three first-generation freshmen, Briani, Conner, and Jacklynn, as they not only experience their first semester of college, but the COVID-19 pandemic that turned their Spring semester upside down. From life in the ivy league to classes at a community college, this nonfiction book follows these students’ challenges, successes, and dreams as they tackle their first year of college and juggle responsibilities to their families back home.

Eye-opening and poignant, Jennifer Miller writes a narrative nonfiction story that speaks to new beginnings, coming of age, and perseverance.

Jennifer Miller is the author of four critically-acclaimed books, Inheriting the Holy Land, The Year of the Gadfly, The Heart You Carry Home and Mr. Nice Guy. Today Miller is a regular contributor to The New York Times and The Washington Post. She has written extensively on education, mental health and, more broadly, about disenfranchised communities, including military veterans, Native Americans and the rural working class. She has taught undergraduates and graduate writing students at Columbia and has been a thesis advisor at both the Columbia School of the Arts and the Journalism School. byjennifermiller.com