PROFESSOR WILDER:
My mother's dream
was for us to go to college.
And I think for a lot of
first-generation college
students, college
represents this opportunity,
not just for us, but
for our whole families
to change the story
of their lives.
JIMMY ROJAS: My
name is Jimmy Rojas.
I am from Costa Rica.
I am an international
student here at MIT.
WALTER MENENDEZ: My parents
didn't go to college.
My mom's a housekeeper.
My dad's a construction worker.
Me getting into college
was a pretty big deal.
CHRISTINE WALLEY: My
dad was a steel worker.
He didn't graduate
from high school.
My grandfather had a
grammar school education.
He was also a steel worker.
My great grandfather
was a steel worker.
And I grew up in an area where
it wasn't really expected
that people were going
to go to college.
JIMMY ROJAS: My parents, they
went to elementary school
and that's it.
They were very supportive.
And there were always,
like-- people tell you
that getting into
MIT isn't possible.
But we think that you can do it.
Because you're putting
a lot of effort.
SAMANTHA LEWIS: I sort
of went through a lot
of the process on my own just
because my parents hadn't
gone through the
process themselves.
So they didn't really--
they were there for me.
But they couldn't
provide a lot of advice.
WALTER MENENDEZ: Filling out
applications, taking tests,
sending in scores, and
getting recommendations--
it was a lot of things.
It took a lot of figuring out.
And a lot of it was just like,
I had to ask my teachers.
I had to ask family friends.
CHRISTINE WALLEY: Right when I
went away to this prep school,
my dad was working
temporarily as a janitor.
And when I said I wanted to go
away to this boarding school,
he almost started to cry.
And he said, I don't
want you to go.
Because I'm afraid you're going
to come back and look down
at me because I'm a janitor.
WALTER MENENDEZ: There
was this very brief stint,
like around my sophomore
year of high school,
where, for a split second it
was like, am I going to college?
Is that something I should do?
It was that bad.
It was to the point
where it was like,
I didn't know if I
should go to college.
JIMMY ROJAS: After
all of that effort,
I ended up getting into MIT.
Amazing.
Just an unbelievable feeling.
PROFESSOR WILDER: I had
always been a bright student.
So to go to college
and all of a sudden
find out that there were these
things I was supposed to know,
and that everybody
else in the classroom
had learned stuff that
I had never learned,
was a humbling and
demoralizing experience that
led me at times to just
retreat and think to myself,
this is not the place for me.
DIEGO GIRALDEZ: Your
family is typically
almost counting on you.
You've made them so proud.
It's such a rare thing, maybe.
You're the first one to
go to college, first one
to try this thing out.
And particularly at
a place like MIT,
it's, you know-- you don't
want to disappoint anyone.
PROFESSOR WILDER: But the
last thing I wanted to do
was walk into a
professor's office and say,
I'm not following something.
I don't know what's happening.
I need help with such and such.
It took me, I think, until
the very end of college
to work up that kind of courage.
SAMANTHA LEWIS:
For me, college is
the make it or break it thing.
It's not-- there is no
option to change my mind.
PROFESSOR WILDER: My
mother witnessed her dream
come true-- her two kids
heading off to college.
And I think she simultaneously
worried and was dreadfully
afraid that college
was going to change us.
JIMMY ROJAS: I feel like
I belong here after all.
I was here for just six months,
and then I went to Costa Rica.
But I wanted to come back.
PROFESSOR WILDER: When we
came home on the holidays,
we were under great scrutiny.
Everyone was looking at how
we talked, and how we sat,
and what we ate,
and how we behaved,
and what music we listened to.
They had to figure out
what was happening to us--
whether or not we
still belonged.
CHRISTINE WALLEY: When
students move away
to go to elite schools,
there is a real rupture
that gets created
with families at home.
Their families are coming
from different backgrounds.
And oftentimes I think both
the students and the parents
don't really know
how to address that.
 
And those feelings get
buried a lot, I think.
SAMANTHA LEWIS: I am my family's
support system once I graduate.
JIMMY ROJAS: My
mother has always
wanted to be in an airplane.
My father has always
wanted to have a telescope.
In a few years,
I think I will be
able to make those dreams real.
I put a lot of effort
to change my life.
And I would like to do
something to change theirs.
Not just my parents, also
my sister, and hopefully
everyone else in my family.
And hopefully everyone
else in the country.
PROFESSOR WILDER: The very
success of our careers
has made us sort of invisible.
And I walk into room
now, and people see me
as the head of the
history faculty.
But they don't see me as a guy
from Bedford Stuyvesant who
had a good chance of not even
making it through college.
JIMMY ROJAS: I now have
a much bigger perspective
of the world.
And I understand many things
that I didn't understand.
I was living in like a bubble.
And I had no idea what was
happening outside that place.
So MIT has opened my mind.
SAMANTHA LEWIS:
It's life changing.
Because it just opens
up a couple other world
of opportunities than I would
have ever had access to.
And I feel like an MIT degree,
no matter what you study,
there are lots of
ways to apply it.
PRESIDENT REIF: I
want to conclude
by celebrating and thanking
the good people of this world,
while at the same
time honoring a most
important couple in my life.
The couple in my story
left Eastern Europe
in the late 1930s during
one of the darkest periods
in its history and found
refuge in South America.
This couple raised four sons
under extremely difficult
circumstances, but raised
them with principles,
with integrity and values.
Out of the goodness
of good people,
this couple escaped
direct catastrophe.
So today I want to honor
everyone who's struggling
and who dreams of a brighter
future for their children,
and to tell each of
them that there is hope.
Because the youngest son
of the couple in my story
eventually became the
17th president of one
of the most remarkable
educational institutions
the world has ever seen.
[APPLAUSE]
JIMMY ROJAS: Many people have
dreams like the one I had.
They feel like those
dreams are basically
impossible to achieve.
So with an MIT degree,
with a college degree,
I think I will the voice to show
the world that you can actually
achieve your dreams.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
 
