CHAPTER 9: EXTENDING THE VILLAGE: Utilizing R.A.C.E. Mentoring to Obtain Support as an ABD Student Distanced From My Home Institution

I recently graduated from a doctoral program in curriculum and teaching at an Ivy League university in the Northeast and define myself as a 1.5 generation college student. Literature on the experiences of college students of color frequently focus on students who are first-generation college students and the obstacles they surmount to enroll in and graduate from post-secondary institutions. The experiences of children of nontraditional college graduates are virtually nonexistent. While there are material and social resources that 1.5 generation college students hold by virtue of at least one of their parents being a college graduate, there are still resources and experiences that their parents may not be able to assist with as children of individuals who were traditional college students and who may even be secondand third-generation college goers themselves. Limited access to individuals in varied careers, including high-status ones requiring advanced and terminal degrees, for instance, is one disadvantage shared by both first-generation and 1.5 generation college students alike, making it difficult for these students to know how to navigate these programs. Mentoring becomes a necessary component for learning the mores of those spaces and professions. For example, it was often difficult for my parents to understand how vastly different doctoral study was from undergraduate study. More specifically,, the need to publish and pursue professional development opportunities made it so that there was no “off” period, and that occurrence was a part of the socialization into academia itself.