Financial aid is not the only support that first generation college students need. Often, counseling, mentoring, advising, role modeling, play a more significant role in college success. Interviews with a group of students supported by Educational Talent Search and the F.O.C.U.S. summer orientation program revealed the importance of bridge programs in students' transition from high school to college, and their success in college. The students felt that these programs provided role models and mentors who have given them important moral support and guidance. Mireya and Juanita discussed their experience with the ETS and F.O.C.U.S. programs. Mireya explained:

Then they had the FOCUS program. Since I worked for ETS, I was staff, I was an RA. But I was also in the program as a freshman. So, I had the opportunity of both organizing it as well as being part of it.... I didn't know the effect it [FOCUS] was going to have.... They chose really good speakers. When [my parents] dropped me off at the dorms [in the fall], I was really excited. I had gotten to know some people, so I didn't feel uncomfortable. I already knew a lot of the professors because of the talks they gave [during FOCUS]. I knew a lot of the incoming freshman and students like me. So, I felt that I could talk to them and ask them questions without them thinking I'm dumb.

Juanita recalled:

It was the first time I visited campus and I had no idea what was the main vision on the campus. I had no idea what was going on. I just found myself with an opportunity of attending a campus and being with someone I knew. It wasn't just my cousin, it was all the other students that participated in the [FOCUS] program. José Saldaña and all the staff. We really got to know each other and I felt like I was at home and that this would be the right place to be. And also that it's really small, I wouldn't have that fear of getting lost.

Other students value the support they receive from faculty at CSUMB. Freshman, Benjamín Jiménez said:

I have a math teacher and I was going late to class. It's an 8:00 class and I wasn't use to waking up because like my first semester I had a 10:00 class, an 11:00 class and I would wake up at 9:00. Now I have to wake up at 7:00. I missed like two days of class. Like I went late and then another time I went a half-hour late. And she was like "You know what? I'm gonna start calling your home!" I was like, "Oh no!" So she did! For two mornings, she's calling me, she's all, "Oh, you better wake up, you only got like 45 minutes to get here!'" And I was like "Okay." She stopped calling me. But that feltweird. A teacher calling at your dorm. Like I mean not even in high school There's someone looking after you, looking out for you. So that's real cool.

Role models and mentors who help with academic support vary from parents to faculty, to alumni. Martín, a CSUMB student, stated:

I have my parents. They are my first role models. Because when they came here, they didn't have anything. They came with nothing and they surpassed that. They have a home, they have furniture, they have everything. And, I think my parents have suffered a lot though the years. Especially when they lived in LA. They found themselves in hard situations, that I think I would never, never, would have stand for it. I just think they are my number one role models.

Kristopher Ortiz was inspired by one of CSUMB's own graduates who returned to teach in his Salinas community:

I have a friend who graduated from here, he says he was the first person ever to graduate from CSUMB, Frank López. He is a teacher in César Chávez elementary school. Him being a friend of my uncle and me, hanging around with him a lot, the way he thinks kind of rubbed off on me.

First generation college students not only bear financial, academic responsibilities, but they also recognize responsibility to self and that they are role models in the making who carry the hopes and dreams of others. When one student was asked if she ever considered quitting school she responded:

No, I haven't. And I don't think that would be my option, because I know if I quit I am the one to blame. And I think I would let my parents down, because they really look up to me. And the people that are around me, that know I am in college, that know I am capable of doing. And if I quit I would let them down and I would let myself down.