The Cornell Daily Sun Publishes Cooke Scholar's First Gen Insights

Posted March 9, 2016 | By Cooke Foundation Staff

Cooke Scholar Sagar Chapagain is a first-generation college student who began his undergraduate studies at a community college. Despite academic honors and graduating with two associate degrees, he believed a four-year college was not a possibility due to the cost of attendance.

Sagar now attends Cornell University as a recipient of the Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship. In a piece in The Cornell Daily Sun, he shares a bit of his experiences and encourages his current institution to continue improving outreach to other first-generation, low-income students:

Last weekend, I was one of the many students who were given the opportunity of a lifetime of representing Cornell University, First in Class, in the 2016 Inter Ivy League First generation College Student Conference at Harvard University. It was a powerful, yet deeply emotional experience to meet 300 first gens like me who, despite being a student at an elite university, came from very humble backgrounds. Continue reading…