Most of the students we interviewed thought college life would be much harder than high school and feared that they wouldn't be prepared. Fernandez states, "Many first generation college students are less prepared for college both-academically and psychologically- than students who come from college educated families. Although these skills and motivation deficits can be overcome, they make the transition to college more difficult." (3) One of our interviewees stated,

Well, I thought it was going to be hard cause I really wasn't into, I guess ready for it, like (uh) I took regular classes in high school, no AP classes or anything like that, so I knew it was going to be hard; and I guess it has been." Another student says, "Well, cause I'm not used to doing all the work, it's not that it's hard and that I can't do it , it's just that I'm not used to doing homework every night and studying and stuff, but other than that I mean it's pretty straight forward. (Vargas)

Another student said,

Well, I had very high demands about college. I thought it would be very stressful and it has proved to be in some way, but I thought it would be a little more like it's kind of hard to explain, a little more like classroom orientated in the sense that teachers would really, not really be in your face and on you like that but they would at least like have this It's a different - it seems more like a high school to me in a sense. You know it's like my ideal of college was a little stricter in a way. (Joseph)

    From these answers we can conclude that most of these students were simply given the wrong information and guidance about college. Instead of being told positive things about attending college, the majority of them, especially the non-white students, have been discouraged and steered away from attending college, specifically a four year college.