This week's reflection is a recap of the event I worked on Thursday evening. I was on a 3-person student panel with my colleagues Chauncey and Priya and we were tasked with answering questions from first generation incoming college students. It was a truly incredible experience sharing our stories because of the vast differences in circumstances that led to us being in the same country, state, city and university. Students were eager to know if being a first generation college student brought any sense of shame or pride and it will, in my opinion, always be the latter. Why? because our status as students at a world class institution is the culmination of hard work and sacrifice by those that came before us. I've lived in five different countries and today I write my story from Cincinnati, Ohio as a man infatuated with education. I am proud to be a Bearcat and I sincerely hope that my pride inspires others to find the passion lying within us to succeed as first generation college students. Whether our family's history was one of pain and dark times or good times and success or both, we are here to write a new book on the story of our lives; and by realizing our full potential and fulfilling our dreams, we also honor our parents and our ancestors who sacrificed so much to give us a better life.