timothy woods an instructional professor in the department of sociology and a first mentor also taught a fig course for several years for the former college of liberal arts in addition to the regular academic classroom experience his fig students regularly met on saturdays to rebuild houses for low-income elderly in the bryan-college station area woods says such service activities helped the students relate course material to real-life within their community while providing them with a tangible opportunity to work together become friends and support each other as aggies my favorite aspect of teaching first-generation students is watching them transform from students who are not sure they belong at college in the first couple of weeks of the semester to students who are proud to be aggies and recognize that they have important contributions to make to the aggie community said woods a 2000 texas a&m sociology phd graduate it is especially meaningful when students graduate and move on from texas a&m but continue to share with me the challenges and successes they experience in their career and life paths i have many former students who email phone and/or zoom with me and hearing from them is one of the most rewarding parts of my job beyond common first-year-experience courses and learning communities first-generation students in arts and sciences benefit from a variety of scholarship programs including the regents scholars and century scholars programs at the university level the brockman scholars and brown scholars programs supporting high-achieving stem majors and the colleges own flagship retention program science leadership scholars (sls) in addition to financial support each program offers intangibles that first-generation students describe as invaluable in their college journey first-generation sophomore biology major and regents scholar christal guevara escobar 25 admits she initially felt continuous doubt as to whether or not she had the strength and ability to be at texas a&m she credits an excellent support system and the comfort of knowing that if this was not for me i would have never gotten the opportunity for making her college transition not only doable but also much more enjoyable imposter syndrome will undoubtedly be felt at some point which makes it extremely important to find a strong support system that will subdue the voice which tells you that you do not belong she added as the first person to attend university in his family sophomore applied mathematics major and sls scholar jeff lee 25 says he felt obligated to do what is best for his loved ones through sls he received an academic scholarship along with so much more including the mentorship critical advice and friends he says have helped him alleviate the potential burdens and doubts of being a college student having little knowledge going in i felt like i was blindly walking down the road not taken wasting precious time and resources lee recalled today i am more than confident to say that i will successfully pioneer through my arduous journey without the guidance and role models constantly around me through sls i would have most likely given in to the intrusive thoughts of failure