Call for participants from our intern Morgan

Hello UP-Community!

My name is Morgan Pagenkopf and I am an intern with the UP-Community and an international student at Utrecht University, where I am studying a master’s in Social Policy and Public Health. I completed my bachelor’s degree in my home country of the United States at the University of Wisconsin, where I double majored in Human Development and Family Studies and Psychology. It was during this degree that I first realized the importance of being a first-generation student. Coming from a rural, working-class community, not having a university degree was the norm – while at my urban university, only about 15% of my peers were fellow first-gen students. While I was fortunate to benefit from scholarships and programming offered to me because of my first-generation status, I still struggled to find a community of peers who could relate to the same challenges and experiences I faced while navigating my bachelors. Now, as a master’s student, I am passionate about advocating for fellow first-generation students, and I am grateful for the opportunity to join and intern with the UP-Community as it gets started this term.

“Coming from a rural, working-class community, not having a university degree was the norm – while at my urban university, only about 15% of my peers were fellow first-gen students.”

For research purposes, I will be conducting semi-structured interviews to investigate the experiences and role of support in first-generation college students at Utrecht University. This research will be used in a program evaluation for the UP-Community to gain insight and feedback from members to learn more about your individual experiences as first-generation college students and what you would like to see from the UP-Community in the future. Additionally, this research will be used for my thesis, which will investigate the role of parental and family support in the experiences of first-generation college students.

If you are interested in sharing your experience through an interview, please click the link below to sign up for a time slot. After doing so, you will receive a confirmation from me to schedule an exact date, time, and location.

Survey → https://survey.uu.nl/jfe/form/SV_eA6ciK4GZUEdTJI

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me, Morgan Pagenkopf at m.m.pagenkopf@students.uu.nl.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to meeting with you!

Morgan Pagenkopf

UP-Community Intern