Interviewers: Lux Darkbloom
Interview Subject: Tyler Le 

Lux: There we go. We have started the recording. So before we get into the questions, if you could please introduce yourself and just tell me a little bit about your background, like your family, if you have siblings, stuff like that. 

Tyler: Yeah, awesome. So hello, everyone. My name is Tyler. I am a Vietnamese-American. I was born here in Millcreek, Utah. My dad came over to the US in 1993. He wanted a new life for his family and he found it here in Utah. So I have one other brother. Him and I…he attended the U before me. As I was thinking about my career path, I was like, “Maybe I’ll stay close to home.” So I decided to come to the U because it was close to home, it was close to people I knew, it was close to family, which was most important to me. Because that’s a big value that my dad brought over to America with him, was his care for his family. And I thought, “Maybe I should stay a little longer just to be there in times of need.” So yeah. 

Lux: I don’t remember if you mentioned this. Do you have siblings? 

Tyler: I have one sibling, yes. 

Lux: You said this is your brother who has been at the U before you.

Tyler: Correct. Yeah. 

Lux: Alright. So what was your major motivation for deciding to pursue higher education? 

Tyler: Yeah, so, my dad actually was a big encouragement for both my brother and I going to university at all, or pursuing higher education in general. The thing is, he…actually, his whole mentality was, “I could not get this education and I believe it’s the best for you guys. So I do want you guys to do it.” Because when he was in Vietnam, around his sixth year in elementary or around sixth grade year, he decided to leave school because he wanted to pursue work instead of school. That decision loops all the way back to around to now, where he’s telling us that, “Yeah, I have been working so hard all my life, and I don’t believe it was a good choice then. And because I didn’t get this education, I want you guys to have it because I know how powerful it could be.” Because he was worried…because from his situation, he didn’t go to school and he had to work all these difficult jobs for his entire life. So his thought was, if you could pursue any higher education, you could find better success and a better life than he had, which is his true end goal with his family. 

Lux: Who would you say is–or I should say–do you have any specific role models or mentors who, in addition to your dad, influenced this decision to pursue higher ed? 

Tyler: I would have to thank my brother, for one, a bunch of my friends, and my teachers. My brother, who had the first look at college, sat me down, and made sure I knew what I was doing and what I was getting myself into to make sure my higher education life was successful. All of my friends were telling me about going to higher education, you’ll learn more, you’ll learn what you actually want to learn, and you’ll like the life of higher education more than you did right now in high school. A bunch of my teachers said, yeah, you finally have a passion that you can work towards and learn more about. And that’s the whole fun of higher education, is that you find this passion that you want to learn about, and you’re actually allowed to just do whatever, or you have more of a freedom to study those ideas, get more into your field that you want. 

Lux: What is your major right now? 

Tyler: I am currently switching from computer science to chemical engineering.

Lux: Oh, interesting. What motivated that choice? 

Tyler: Initially, computer science was an easy choice. “No-brainer,” I thought as a high schooler. Because I love computers, I love video games. I thought, maybe this is for me, computer sciences. The further along I got through high school, the more I thought my coding skills aren’t as good, and I’m not finding this much enjoyment in coding. When I finally found my footing in chemistry, I thought, “Wow. Chemistry is such an open field with so many things to think about, so many things to do, that maybe I should go into more chemistry. I wanted to stay in some engineering field, and I found chemical engineering.”

Lux: Nice. What year are you in school right now? 

Tyler: I am currently a second-year.

Lux: Excellent. Are you going full-time or part-time? 

Tyler: I’m going full-time. 

Lux: Dang, how many credits are you taking? 

Tyler: For this semester, I am taking 18. 

Lux: Oh my gosh, that’s a lot. Isn’t that where you can top out credit-wise?

Tyler: I believe so, yes. My schedule before this had 21, but my counselor said, “Maybe tone it back a bit. You want to get the feel for it at least.” And I said, “Okay, yes, we’ll do that then.” 

Lux: That’s a tremendous amount of work, my goodness. Are you working as well as going to school? 

Tyler: Currently, I’m not working. 

Lux: Nice. That is very fortunate, especially with the number of credit hours that you’ve got set up for. Incredible. With being in the College of Engineering, do you experience a lot of tuition differentials? 

Tyler: I’d say yes, with the scholarships that you can apply for. I guess the College of Engineering also does have more options for scholarships is what I’ve seen, but that’s what we’re talking about differentials.

Lux: Yeah, so with differentials, it’s kind of an interesting thing, where specific courses or levels of courses in particular programs will cost–in addition to the regular cost of tuition for those credit hours–there are some fees attached to them. 

Tyler: Yes. 

Lux: Not super. 

Tyler: Got it. 

Lux: But we hear a lot about tuition differentials in certain colleges more than others, so that’s why I was curious. 

Tyler: Yes. It’s more like paying extra for labs or such, and textbooks that are semi-required, but you have a choice to switch out of those. But it’s mostly the labs and the discussion. For some reason, they make you pay extra to do those, which they are nice, but it is an extra cost. 

Lux: Yes. Those costs sure add up quickly. Let’s see. I was just about to ask you, let me think. Oh, yes. So school life versus “regular life,” how do you balance your responsibilities? 

Tyler: I mean, since I was a kid, I’ve had trouble balancing everything I’m doing at once. But it’s nice to have a social life outside of school to be somewhat close to school. It’s [counterintuitive] because you don’t want to think about school when you’re on free time. But I have a bunch of friends who are all in the same classes, and we all hang out afterwards. I feel like the barrier between the school life and my free time is thin and narrow, but it’s that lack of a barrier which makes everything very relaxing in school and everything outside of free time. While it might be a little more stressful than having to not think about school, free time outside of school is nice too, because there’s never a barrier between, “Oh, this is where school ends, this is where I have to be free,” or “This is where I have to be free. I cannot be doing school then.” But yeah. 

Lux: That makes a lot of sense. Could you talk a little bit about what it was like when you first came to campus, maybe your first semester or just your first year overall? 

Tyler: Tension, mostly…or not tension, just nerves. Everyone gets onto campus and it’s like, “Wow, I’m starting a new life. It’s going to be a different me. It’s going to be everything different.” But after that, I guess I got bored. I could say I got bored of trying to be new. Everyone here, everyone started their first year, so everyone’s trying to do something new. Then I realized that I just needed to relax and enjoy school. Everything’s changed, too, with having to take more classes that pertain to me. I guess after the initial nervousness of starting a new life on campus and doing things that are different from high school or all other education, it was very nice to get into, less tense than it ever was. And now, heading into second year, it’s also pretty nice, pretty relaxed versus that first initial nerve. 

Lux: Yeah, it is pretty intimidating coming to such a large campus as the U, too. Did your brother give you a lot of support with navigating the campus and the various systems on campus, all the bureaucracy? 

Tyler: So, the interesting thing about my brother and I is that we are a generation apart, is how I would explain it to people, where he did go to college, but it was a long time ago. As he’s further away from me, it was mostly me trying to figure this college stuff on my own while living with my dad who never went to college. It was like explaining to my dad a second time about all these cool things that are happening and figuring out college for myself. 

Lux: Do you feel like any family pressure to succeed or social pressure, or do you feel like a lot of that is intrinsic to you, like you’re impelled by your own motivations, or a combination even? 

Tyler: Actually, yeah. If I’m thinking about it, I feel pressures from all sources, with these familial pressures to succeed, all of my friends who I see are doing well and wanting to succeed themselves–that also gives me motivation to do it. And I guess all of these pressures built up a want for me and myself to do good, which is the main thing I focus on. I try to not let all these external factors weigh into what I want to do, and how I want to navigate my higher education. But it ends up being me, myself, that is pushing myself to do these things.

Lux: A lot of self-motivation.

Tyler: Correct. 

Lux: Do you have friends, peers that you know are first-gen who you can navigate these situations together with, or do you feel more like it’s a solo experience? 

Tyler: I know a good number of first-gen students here, and a bunch of my friends are first-gen students here. But I’ve never really considered that we could navigate college together. I guess it’s more like each first-gen [student] has their own situation of going to college for the very first time in their family. I feel like my first-gen experience has always been slightly different from others, so I couldn’t really connect with these people. But we do end up working things out. We do hang out with each other a lot because we’re all here, we’re all trying to figure out, this is all fun for us. But aside from hanging out with each other, I don’t think we’ve been there with the whole supporting each other. It is fun to think about, though, that we could.

Lux: Do you participate in any of the first-gen programs on campus? 

Tyler: I have considered applying for First-Gen [Scholars]. I mostly just hang out with the first-gen people. As for program-wise with first-gen, I wasn’t that aware of the programs that I could benefit from, so I wasn’t as sure on the programs as far as I know. But I just know that I have a group of other first-gens that I can go to and talk to for certain things. 

Lux: Yeah. I feel like you’re certainly not the first person to say that. There’s…and maybe it’s a marketing issue, but it seems like there are very many resources that are buried under layers of registration and stuff like that. 

Tyler: Yeah. Surely. Yeah, for sure. I feel like if the U was more, I guess we need to be more vocal about it too, like first-gen has to invite other first-gen in. Because I’m slowly getting more info on these programs from being around first-gen. But if the U was more vocal about it, it would be nice because then more people in higher need, because they’re first-gen, they would see this and they would have access to them as well. 

Lux: Absolutely. Yeah. On a related note, but changing directions a little bit, how do you think being first-generation status has impacted your choice of major or your career path, or if it has impacted either of those? 

Tyler: A big thing that my dad wanted for his kids was, you know, at least do something that you want to do. Underlyingly, without being too vocal about it, he also wanted us to be successful because of the previous circumstances. The choices in what I did here at college were really affected by, “Can I be successful?” And in his words, more successful than he was? Could I do that, but also find something that I like to do and want to do? 

Lux: That’s the real challenge, right? 

Tyler:Mm-hmm.

Lux: I’m totally blanking right now, but did you mention that you had a scholarship? 

Tyler: I did, yes. 

Lux: Okay, can you talk about that a little bit? What are the guidelines around the scholarship? How you found it? If anybody suggested to you, “Hey, maybe you ought to apply for this scholarship?” 

Tyler: Oh, yeah. I got it while I was applying to the U in my senior year. The scholarship itself requires you to keep a high GPA. And for that, they would give you around $5,000 per year. And this is really nice for incoming students, but I believe it’s called the academic scholarship. But yeah, the university offered it to me while I was applying, and I thought, oh, “I’ll use that. That’s very nice of them.” So yeah, it was a combination of high school rigor, and just hard work from high school that they saw, and they were like, “Oh, yes, you can be awarded this scholarship.”

Lux: Nice. Does that cover all of your tuition or the vast majority of it?

Tyler: It does cover the vast majority of my tuition. 

Lux: Oh, I’m so glad to hear that. 

Tyler: Yeah.

Lux: How do you work around getting the balance of your tuition covered? 

Tyler: Right now, as I said before, I’m not working. My dad did have an external savings in order for me to go to college, and growing up, I was thinking maybe I could work and help out with paying for this, but my dad was very against [me] working. I stated before, he has this trauma from working as a kid, and so he said, “Tyler, I want to pay for your education because I don’t want you to work for it. Because, again, I’ve been working for so long, I don’t want to have to put you through that struggle.” So that’s where most of my tuition is coming from.

Lux: That is so fantastic. I’m really glad to hear that your dad understands just how difficult it would be to try to manage work on top of such a full schedule of courses. Do you think that being first-gen has impacted your academic success in any way? 

Tyler: I feel like, let’s see…There’s many ways I could look at my being first-gen and talk about how it’s affected me. I don’t feel too disadvantaged, but I do feel some sort of disadvantage not having a solid college plan before me, or someone who could give me a solid college plan to go off of. That’s probably where I feel the most lost when it comes to college and other things, because without that sort of plan or head start, it was hard to find myself, what I needed to do, everything that needed to happen, etc. 

Lux: So in talking with students, I’ve noticed or inferred that there are a lot of folks who are experiencing courses with faculty who perceive first-gen students through a sort of deficit model, meaning that there is this sense that because you’re among the first in your family to attend higher ed, that there’s some kind of invisible curriculum that you’re not aware of, or do you feel that you’ve encountered more faculty that see your positionality, I guess, is a way to put it, but I’m not sure if faculty are aware of your first-gen status even, but if you perceive that it’s more of an asset model that they’re applying to first-gen students, where you are resilient and you are capable and knowledgeable about navigating these complex systems. 

Tyler: Yeah, I feel very lucky to take classes with all these, with various professors, who are actually very forgiving, I guess you could say, on all their students, actually, without singling out these first-gen students on their own. They do encourage…Every student is there because they’re learning the same thing. They’re not discouraging or encouraging a certain group of students just because they’re a different status from the rest. They expect the best work out of everyone, and they don’t expect more or less from if you’re a first-gen student, or if you’re a student with some sort of higher education background. So, yeah, I feel blessed to have to know that most of the faculty I’ve worked with, or all the faculty I’ve worked with even, are that nice, that open. 

Lux: I’m so glad to hear that, too. That’s a really huge positive. Do you feel like…or I guess, how has your first-gen status impacted your social life, or your emotional well-being at the university, or if it hasn’t played a role in that at all? 

Tyler: I have not seen a significant role in being a first-gen. I do appreciate that there’s no, I guess, there’s no polarization being a first-gen student, because all students on campus are just…you know, we’re all here to learn, to do things, to live the college life. There’s no distinction between if you’re just coming here, or if you’ve been here. But yeah, it’s nice that I haven’t experienced that, and there is no barrier that exists for first-gen students, from what I’ve seen. 

Lux: Yeah. What kind of barriers have impacted your experience in a significant way–if any? 

Tyler: I’m just trying to think. Let’s see. Because barrier-wise, sorry, I don’t believe there’s any community…there hasn’t been any communities on campus that, you know, there’s no communities on campus that have been, you know, have polarized, or have gotten me from hanging out with them, or, you know, feeling like I’m out of place at the U. I feel like the U has opened enough to where I haven’t experienced a barrier in those senses. I guess the only barrier is the barriers you create for yourself in classes, mostly. I’ve experienced where…I’ve experienced most of these barriers where I’ve, you know, trying to get into the swing of class, and I’m just not getting there. And so, if I don’t…if I’m not letting myself, like, you know, live the life, or like, focus in school, that’s probably where my stopping point is. But, yeah. 

Lux: Yeah. You mentioned, like, a sense of belonging, and feeling a sense of belonging in college is a…it has a huge impact on a student’s academic success. Do you feel like it’s something good that the University of Utah fosters a sense of belonging, or do you feel that there’s something lacking there? 

Tyler: Oh, it’s awesome that the U encourages this, you know, sense of connectedness and belonging. I have not seen any holes in it particularly. I do know of one-off occurrences where many people may not feel as, you know, as welcomed at the U. But when you are following those, I feel like the community at the U gets closer together, and encourages more, you know, connectedness between all these different people. But, like, after these bad occurrences happen, where people say, “Hey, we don’t want a certain…you know, we feel this about a certain community.” There’s always rebound, where a lot more people will come out and say, “Hey, actually, here at the U, we love, and we support so-and-so, and we want so-and-so to be here,” you know? So, it’s, I feel like the U has had a good reputation of welcomeness.

Lux: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. It sounds kind of like maybe, like you mentioned, various communities might feel more or less welcomed. Do you feel like that has anything to do with, like, the dominant culture at the university, or more broadly in the state? 

Tyler: The state…the community in the state does feel polarizing for individuals like me, or like, yeah, and many of my friends in the first-gen. But, I would more blame that as a cause of time, rather than an occurrence now that’s actively being held up at the U. Obviously, you know, the U’s changing, the U’s more open to everyone coming in, which is the show of, like, change, rather than the consistent, or staying to, like, the state norms, I guess. Which is nice. 

Lux: Yeah, I think that’s a huge bonus. So, kind of wrapping things up, unless there’s anything else you’d like to talk about, I was wondering if you might have any words of guidance or advice for current first-gen students, or for high school students who are considering higher ed for the first time? 

Tyler: Yeah, so I guess my biggest advice for, you know, all incoming students of every nature is that college life will seem scary…going into higher education will seem scary, but after you realize that everyone here at the University of Utah wants to, you know, wants to help you out, wants to see you successful, and everyone…and everything that happens on campus is nothing too difficult if you just put work in, and just, you know, put some effort in, do a little work. Everything on campus life is just awesome. Everything about going to higher education is awesome. Everything is awesome. If you just know that you have to put in that little bit of effort, and remember that everyone here wants to help you put in that effort. 

Lux: How do you feel about engaging services on campus or different resources? Do you feel like those are fairly accessible? Or do you have any positive experiences or otherwise that you’d want to talk about? 

Tyler: I do know that these resources are advertised very well and very open to students. And they are made known to students very well, which is a nice thing. I’ve used…let’s see, I’ve used a few of the student resources previously, and they have been very useful for giving me, you know, information on certain things, such as financial help…when I ask the Financial Wellness Center for some help, or the, you know, I guess the Student Counseling, or the Student Advising, the counselors that really helped, you know, set me on track here at the U. So, yeah, these…the services at the U are pretty good, although some services may need some more…I guess, advertisement and more awareness than they were getting previously. 

Lux: Anything that comes to mind when you say that?

Tyler: I guess…certain things that a bunch of faculty, such as professors and such, do mention about these…about these certain services and, like, a bunch of them put them in their syllabus. But I feel like that has been the only way I’ve known about, like, certain student services, like…I can’t name them directly off [the top of] my head, but it was mostly these services that helped students feel, just feel better. 

Lux: Yeah. 

Tyler: These, like…it’s all the programs that are meant for students to get help outside of school, you know, like, more social help, more life help. But I feel like it’s been…they were all condensed into just the syllabuses that they…I feel…almost like they didn’t need to advertise around campus, but I feel like that’s…those were the important clubs to advertise. 

Lux: That sounds great. Well, is there anything you would like to add before we wrap up?

Tyler: No, I mean, that’s all…that’s all my thoughts. I’m glad to be able to be at the U. I’m glad that I…thank you for letting me, you know, share my story about being a first-gen student. I appreciate…I just appreciate the university. I’ve never…[it’s my] first time being at a university, and if you have a great experience like I’m having, I could never imagine anything better. 

Lux: I am so glad to hear it. Thank you so much for talking with me and for being open to sharing your story. I think that it’s going to give a lot of your peers and potential new students a lot of hope that they can have an amazing experience even, you know, at a place that’s completely unfamiliar. 

Tyler: Yes, I also am hoping that, you know, all these incoming students, you know, have this wonderful…get to experience the U. Because the U is just unlike any other school. 

Lux: Well, thanks again so much.It has been a real pleasure talking with you and learning about this stuff. 

Tyler: Awesome, thank you so much. 

Lux: And I will keep you posted on where we’re at in this process of recording and very sooner than later, uploading these interviews and transcripts to our library catalog so folks can access them. 

Tyler: Oh, awesome. Thank you so much. 

Lux: Yeah, well, have a great day. Thank you, Tyler. 

Tyler: You as well. Bye-bye.