"It's because of me - I made myself get here": First-Generation College Students in STEM Motivations for, and Experiences with, Academic Advising.

“It's because of me – I made myself get here”: First-Generation College Students in STEM Motivations for, and Experiences with, Academic Advising - PMC Skip to main content An official website of the United States government Here's how you know Here's how you know Search Log in Primary site navigation Search Log in Search PMC Full-Text Archive Search in PMC Journal List User Guide As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. Inclusion in an NLM database does not imply endorsement of, or agreement with, the contents by NLM or the National Institutes of Health. Learn more: PMC Disclaimer | PMC Copyright Notice CBE Life Sci Educ . 2026 Summer 1;25(2):ar21. doi: 10.1187/cbe.25-08-0176 “It's because of me – I made myself get here”: First-Generation College Students in STEM Motivations for, and Experiences with, Academic Advising Desirée Forsythe †, * , Amy C Moors ‡ , Quaylan Allen § , Jeremy L Hsu ‖ Editor: Paul Richard Hernandez, Author information Article notes Copyright and License information † Biology, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, United States of America,95053 ‡ Psychology, Chapman University, Orange, CA, United States of America, 92866 § Education,Chapman University, Orange, CA, United States of America, 92866 ‖ Biology, Chapman University, Orange, CA, United States of America, 92866 Author contributions: D.F., A.M., Q.A., and J.H. conceived and designed the experiments. D.F., A.M., Q.A., and J.H. performed the experiments. D.F., A.M., Q.A., and J.H. analyzed the data. D.F., A.M., Q.A., and J.H. drafted the article. Conflict of interest: The authors declare no competing financial interest. ✉ *Address correspondence to: Desirée Forsythe ( dforsythe@scu.edu ). Roles Paul Richard Hernandez, : Monitoring Editor Received 2025 Aug 18; Revised 2026 Mar 31; Accepted 2026 Apr 10. © 2026 Forsythe et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2026 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 ). “ASCB®” and “The American Society for Cell Biology®” are registered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology. PMC Copyright notice PMCID: PMC13229126  PMID: 42207842 Abstract Academic advising plays a major role in shaping undergraduate life sciences students’ experiences through college. However, despite the critical nature of advising, there have been relatively few studies examining students’ experiences with advising and how these experiences may influence their academic journeys. Here, we investigate first-generation college students’ experiences with academic advising in biology and throughout STEM. Through the lens of community cultural wealth, we found several themes such as balancing independence and pressures to succeed, identity as a source for empowerment and motivation, wanting reassurance and support from advisors, as well as negative outcomes during interactions with advisors. We also provide recommendations from student participants on how to improve academic advising. This research adds to the limited, but growing, body of literature on academic advising broadly, and within biology and other STEM fields specifically. INTRODUCTION Academic advising plays a major part in shaping undergraduate biology students’ experiences in college. For instance, every major accreditation agency in the United States requires that colleges and universities provide access to advisors who can guide students through academic requirements. As such, advisors provide different types of critical guidance, such as choosing courses, responding to academic and social challenges, exploring internships, and deciding on career pathways. Given the major role that advisors play, it is perhaps unsurprising that past work has found that students’ experiences with academic advising can impact their retention and success ( King and Kerr, 2005 ; Peterson et al. , 2019 ; Holmes, 2022 ; Rozhenkova, et al. , 2022 ), with multiple commentaries illustrating the impact that academic advisors can have ( Drake, 2011 ; White and Schulenbert, 2012 ). Despite the integral part that advising plays in undergraduate experiences, there remains only limited work examining the role of academic advising within STEM, and even fewer studies in the context of undergraduate biology. Most notably, Rozhenkova et al. (2022) conducted focus groups and interviews with undergraduate STEM majors (as well as students who had transferred out of STEM) at a large, public institution with very high research activity (colloquially known as an “R1” university, McCormick and Zhao, 2005 ), as well as academic advisors at that institution. Their findings shed insight into how students viewed their experiences with advising and provided evidence that these interactions impacted students’ decisions to stay or leave STEM. It is important to note that Rozhenkova et al. (2022) did not identify differences in advising access across STEM majors. Within biology specifically, Heekin (2013) investigated students’ preferences for academic advising at one institution, finding that students preferred faculty serving as academic advisors so that they could provide greater guidance for career pathways, and Araneo et al. (2017) synthesized resources for biology faculty to best advise students on career paths. This paucity of literature surrounding academic advising in biology and STEM necessitates an urgent examination of how students interact with and experience academic advising, particularly at universities that are not classified as R1 institutions. In the present study, we focus specifically on the experiences of first-generation college students in biology and other STEM disciplines at a private, comprehensive R2 university that is primarily focused on undergraduate education. We focus on first-generation college (FGC) students, given that few studies have centered the voices of FGC students in STEM when examining academic advising experiences, with a few notable exceptions (refer to the literature review section below). Given that FGC students often enter higher education without the same level of previous exposure to college norms and systems that students with college-educated parents may have ( Pascarella et al. , 2004 ; Gloria and Castellanos, 2012 ), it is critical to explore their interactions with academic advising and investigate how such interactions shape FGC students’ journeys in biology and STEM. Similarly, we focus on the experiences of biology majors, students in biology-adjacent disciplines (e.g., biochemistry and health sciences), and other STEM fields for several reasons. First, previous studies have examined FGC STEM students’ experiences in college, often finding that FGC students share unique perspectives, strengths, and challenges, regardless of their specific STEM discipline ( Dika and D'Amico, 2016 ). Additionally, a 2017 Department of Education report found that 40% of natural science majors nationwide change their majors at some point before graduation ( Lederman, 2017 ). In light of this, we chose to include FGC students from all STEM majors in our study to capture a broader range of voices, including those who may have previously considered biology or biology-adjacent disciplines. Our decision was also influenced by practical considerations related to our university's advising structure. Advising models vary widely across institutions and even within the same institution, posing challenges for examining students’ advising experiences. At our university, advising models differ by major. Some students are assigned both a faculty advisor (who provides career guidance and advice on major-specific requirements) and a staff advisor (who guides general university requirements). Others are assigned only a staff advisor. Some majors also hire undergraduate students to serve as peer advisors. In addition, there is only one staff advisor for biology majors, who also serves as the advisor for all other majors in the College of Science. Multiple majors, including the biology major, have also changed their advising model in the past few years. Our goal was not to investigate how these different models of advising impacted students, but instead to broadly examine how FGC students navigated academic advising and how those experiences shaped their academic paths. By including FGC students across STEM, we hoped to gain insights about diverse advising systems and provide findings applicable to biology educators and administrators nationwide as they adopt varied advising approaches. Our research questions were: How does a STEM student's first-generation college student identity impact their experiences utilizing academic advising at a comprehensive university? In what ways do FGC students in STEM use navigational capital to access different types of advising at a comprehensive university? We first provide an overview of past literature on FGC students and academic advising, then explore our framework of community cultural wealth. Academic Advising and First-Generation College Students Research suggests that academic advising is a critical, yet overlooked, source of retention for FGC students ( Swecker et al. , 2013 ; Rozhenkova et al. , 2024 ). For example, earlier research found that the number of meetings FGC students, across majors, had with their advisors was linked with retention ( Swecker et al. , 2013 ). Within STEM specifically, Rozhenkova et al. (2024) found that dissatisfaction with academic advising among STEM majors, such as experiencing encouragement to switch majors or lack of empathy from an advisor, was a main factor that contributed to their decision to switch to a non-STEM major. However, most research thus far uses quantitative methodologies. Quantitative methods can help illustrate that a problem exists; however, qualitative research methods are needed to contextualize students’ lived experiences and address the complexity of human behavior and experiences. In the present study, we use qualitative research methods to expand upon this area of work by focusing on FGC students in STEM and their 1) motivations to seek academic advising, 2) experiences with academic advising, and 3) recommendations to improve academic advising. We also investigated two types of academic advising that are common in higher education (e.g., King, 2008 ): advising received from staff at an advising center and advising received from faculty members within the students’ STEM major. We pay particular attention to students within the life sciences, as they represent half of our larger STEM major participant population. The role of academic advising in supporting FGC students . Academic advising is an important component of student support, with advisors playing critical roles in helping students navigate academic decisions (e.g., what courses to take), working with students to guide their improvement after setbacks (e.g., supporting students who do not do well in a course), and planning career pathways ( Swecker et al. , 2013 ). Consequently, past work has identified that academic advisors can play a large role in mentoring students and can have an outsized influence over students’ persistence and retention in college ( Torres and Hernandez, 2009 ; Drake, 2011 ; Tippetts et al. , 2022 ). Advisors likely play an even greater role for FGC students. Despite demonstrating resilience and self-determination, FGC students often navigate higher education systems that presume access to forms of cultural and institutional knowledge more commonly held by continuing-generation peers ( Bui, 2002 ; Redford and Hoyer, 2017 ). This equity gap, combined with at times inequitable access to pre-college preparation, significantly influences FGC students’ decision-making and success in higher education. Holistic and responsive advising plays a key role in addressing college knowledge gaps as well as many of the financial, social, and psychological challenges that disproportionately affect FGC students. However, FGC students access academic advising services at lower rates compared with their continuing-generation peers ( RTI International, 2019 ). One major challenge FGC students face is how to effectively utilize advising resources. Many FGC students are unfamiliar with the role of advisors or are unsure of what questions to ask during sessions ( Collier and Morgan, 2008 ). Similarly, FGC students may be unfamiliar with why and how to access the office hours of faculty for advising ( Valdez, 2016 ). This unfamiliarity with particular college norms and expectations can result in missed opportunities for both academic and professional development. In addition, another barrier that FGC students face is that many current advising structures tend to be prescriptive or developmental. These approaches are not as effective with FGC students as these advising approaches assume that students already possess the knowledge to know when, why, and how to access advising services ( Mu and Fosnacht, 2019 ). Research shows that proactive and tailored approaches, such as an advisor reaching out to initiate a conversation with a student before that student has requested help, can be more effective with FGC students than prescriptive or developmental approaches, such as a blast email that discusses advising resources ( Heissrer and Parette, 2002 ; Swecker et al. , 2013 ). FGC students also disproportionally face financial strain when compared with their generation peers as they are more likely to come from economically disadvantaged communities. This could have the detrimental side effect of reducing FGC students’ ability to access advising services ( Furquim et al. , 2017 ; Wladis et al. , 2018 ), as FGC students are more likely to work more hours while in college, often holding off-campus jobs to meet financial responsibilities ( Pascarella et al. , 2004 ; RTI International, 2019 ). Many FGC students are also non-traditional in age and balance care for children or dependents alongside their studies ( Wladis et al. , 2018 ). The financial obligations associated with the cost of attending college result in competing demands for time, reducing FGC students’ ability to prioritize in-person advising appointments. In addition to financial challenges, FGC students often face other social, cultural, and environmental challenges that further impede their ability to seek advising. For instance, due to their minoritized status on campus and feeling of being an outsider due to their first-generation identity, some FGC students hesitate to approach advisors due to anxiety or fear that their questions will be dismissed as common knowledge ( Housel and Harvey, 2009 ). FGC students report experiences with advisors who appear dismissive of their lived experiences or make assumptions that they should already possess certain institutional knowledge ( Wofford et al. , 2021 ). Finally, FGC students from diverse backgrounds might also experience barriers that sit at the intersection of first-generation status, race, and gender. This is especially true in biology and STEM disciplines, where gender and racial minorities in these programs can be harmed by stereotype threat, where negative assumptions about their academic abilities and admissions credibility amplify feelings of exclusion and a poor sense of belonging ( Dennehy et al. , 2018 ; Costello et al. , 2025 ). Many FGC students report experiencing imposter syndrome due to their campus environment, which makes them less likely to seek support from advisors, faculty, or peers, and thus perpetuates a cycle of isolation and underutilization of resources ( Holden et al. , 2024 ). Furthermore, FGC students of color report racialized encounters during advising sessions, such as being treated differently than their white peers or having their intelligence questioned, which can further erode students’ willingness to seek advising ( Mathews, 2023 ). Although there is a small and growing body of research on students’ experience with advising ( Torres and Hernandez, 2009 ; Mu and Fosnacht, 2019 ; Tippetts et al. , 2022 ), FGC students’ experiences with advising ( Heissrer and Parette, 2002 ; Swecker et al. , 2013 ), and marginalized student experiences within STEM ( Wofford et al. , 2021 ; Costello et al. , 2025 ), there remains a gap in the literature on the experiences of FGC students in biology and STEM with advising. Furthermore, many of the studies on advising mentioned above employ quantitative methodologies ( Torres and Hernandez, 2009 ; Swecker et al. , 2013 ; Redford and Hoyer, 2017 ; Mu and Fosnacht, 2019 ; Tippetts et al. , 2022 ), which often lack the rich descriptive accounts told from participants' points of view. For example, Tippetts et al. (2022) found that students who met with an advisor were more likely to persist and enroll, but this data does not tell us why and how those meetings affected students. Of the qualitative studies that do exist, one examines first-generation students’ experiences with doctoral advising ( Wofford et al. , 2021 ), while another investigates a high school mentoring program that had advising-like components ( Mathews, 2023 ). Therefore, our study addresses a much-needed gap in unpacking the experiences of FGC in biology and STEM with advising. Theoretical framework. To address this gap in the literature, we apply the theoretical lens of community cultural wealth (CCW; Yosso, 2005 ) to situate how academic advising can help or hinder first-generation college students’ success in STEM. CCW builds upon Bourdieu's cultural capital theory (2011), which has been instrumental in explaining how educational institutions privilege middle- and upper-class norms, knowledge, and experiences ( Bourdieu, 2011 ). Bourdieu defines cultural capital as the knowledge, skills, credentials, and social habits that individuals acquire through their upbringing. These advantages often include exposure to books, technology, and educational experiences such as museum visits or college preparatory programs ( Dumais, 2002 ; Barone, 2006 ; Morgan, 2008 ). Schools frequently value and reward these forms of middle-class capital, making it more difficult for those without similar experiences—such as FGC students—to access the same opportunities. However, Bourdieu's cultural capital theory has been critiqued, as it uses a deficit “how-to” model, suggesting that if marginalized students were able to gain access to this cultural capital, they would be able to excel in academia. This lens is problematic in that it does not hold the system itself accountable, nor does it highlight the types of non-dominant cultural capital that marginalized students bring to academia. Grounded in critical race theory ( Ladson-Billings and Tate, 1995 ; Delgado and Stefanic, 2023 ), Yosso (2005) moves beyond this deficit lens and expands the concept of cultural capital. The CCW framework highlights the skills, knowledge, and networks that college students from marginalized communities use to navigate higher education. These are often forms of cultural capital that are unrecognized via traditional notions of white middle-class cultural capital. For instance, aspirational capital refers to the hope and resiliency that allows students to persist in their academic goals despite systemic barriers, while linguistic capital is the language and communication skills, such as bilingualism, that help them bridge home and academic linguistic environments. Familial capital reflects the support, wisdom, and funds of knowledge ( González and Moll, 2002 ) passed through generations, even when parents may not have attended college themselves. Social capital refers to the networks—such as mentors, peers, and community organizations—that provide guidance and opportunities. Navigational capital is particularly critical, as marginalized students must learn to maneuver institutional systems that were not designed with them in mind. Finally, resistant capital is the knowledge and behaviors students engage in to challenge inequalities, exclusionary policies, and advocate for more inclusive educational spaces ( Yosso, 2005 ). By framing cultural capital in this way, Yosso sheds light on the strengths marginalized students bring to academia. These forms of capital not only help them persist but also challenge the traditional notion that success in higher education is solely dependent on dominant cultural norms. Within the context of FGC students, research shows that FGC students often navigate higher education without the inherited cultural capital that many of their peers take for granted. Without parents who have attended college, students may not have had previous exposure to the academic expectations, financial aid processes, or professional networking opportunities that colleges often assume students will know. Garriott (2020) reviewed articles about FGC students utilizing community cultural wealth during their time in academia, discussing how FGC students have high career aspirations (aspirational; Garriott, Flores, and Martens, 2013 ; Thompson, Her, and Nitzarim, 2014 ), are more intentional in finding a “home” on campus that supports both their identities and their navigation of complex systems (social and navigational; Stuber, 2011 ; Garriott and Nisle, 2018 ), utilize their family for emotional support (familial; O'Neal et al. , 2016 ), and can persevere in the face of discrimination (resistant; Jehangir, 2010 ; Davis, 2023 ). However, not all capitals have been explored equally. Vesely et al. (2013) argued that navigational capital is one of the more underexplored capitals and that research about navigational capital continues to frame capital under Bourdieu's, instead of Yosso's, framework (e.g., Araujo, 2012 ). Additionally, these capitals do not only exist independently from one another and more work is needed to show how these various frameworks are at times connected. Thus, our work explores the use of navigational capital in FGC students in biology and STEM higher education (research question 2). In addition, knowing that capitals do not always appear isolated from one another, we unpack how other capitals intertwine with navigational capital in order to fully explore the advising experiences of FGC students in biology and STEM. As mentioned above, FGC students in biology and STEM face a unique environment, as the STEM disciplines are often cited as particularly competitive, isolating, and difficult to navigate. For example, Sausner et al. , (2024) found that FGC students in STEM demonstrate “extreme self-reliance,” relying on independent decision-making and self-instruction to navigate their college experiences, and Duncheon, (2018) found that FGC students employ navigational capital to seek help in STEM fields. Although these studies add to the growing body of literature on how FGC students in biology and STEM navigate the system of academia broadly, no work to date specifically describes how FGC students in biology and STEM utilize navigational capital to navigate specific systems, such as advising. Given that each discipline and system (such as advising) may have its own set of unique challenges, this focused exploration could be useful in identifying the ways that FGC students in biology and STEM expend their navigational capital. METHODS Institutional Context This study took place at a private, R2 university in Southern California. This university has an advising structure that includes academic and faculty advisors. Academic advisors are university-appointed advisors who assist students in planning their academic pathway to graduation and are responsible for assisting students with broad levels of advising, such as transfer credits. Faculty advisors are discipline-specific advisors appointed by the college who hold more knowledge of the discipline-specific course pathways students need to take in order to achieve their degree, with faculty advisors typically providing support for major requirements. Participant Recruitment For this study, we recruited undergraduate students who identified as first-generation college students and were currently enrolled in a STEM major. We recruited by first sending out an email to student listservs for the College of Science and Technology, the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, and the School of Engineering, inviting interested students to fill out a survey on their experiences with advising. This survey helped us identify students who met the criteria (first-generation college student and in STEM) and who had at least one semester completed at the university to allow for the student to have had the opportunity to meet with their academic and/or faculty advisor. From this pool, we selected students who varied across gender, race, and ethnicity, and major to allow for variations of experiences within the data set, reaching out via email to invite them to participate in a focus group on their experiences with advising. Those who gave informed consent were accepted into the study. Our final pool of participants included 15 students from the three colleges ( Table 1 ). TABLE 1. Demographic summary of participants, as self-reported by students Major Biochemistry (1) Biology (1) Chemistry (1) Computer Science (4) Data Science (2) Electrical Engineering (2) Environmental Science and Policy (1) Health Sciences (2) Software Engineering (1) Gender Man (5) Woman (10) Race and Ethnicity Asian (5) Hispanic (8) Hispanic-White (1) White (1) Open in a new tab Interview Protocol Our semistructured interview protocol was developed through an iterative process ( Rubin and Rubin, 2011 ) that focused on several areas relating to advising. We first independently conceptualized interview questions based on our own experiences as students, our experiences as faculty mentors, and the literature we had read on both advising and FGC students. We then came together to discuss our questions and refine them for clarity. Our final interview protocol held several sections relating to experiences with academic and program advising, when students sought which type of advisor, recommendations on how to improve advising, and how advising affected persistence in STEM. Focus Groups The students participated in one of five separate focus groups conducted by all four authors (one author held two) and were held in person or on Zoom, depending on the participants’ choice. Three of the four authors were either outside of STEM and/or were not in faculty positions, therefore having no direct power over the student participants. Although one author was a faculty member in STEM, we attempted to offset this power imbalance by ensuring that the students in the focus group were not direct advisees and were not enrolled in any of the faculty member's courses. These practices were facilitated to create more open responses from the focus group participants. The purpose of the focus group interviews was to examine their experiences relating to academic and program advising, when students sought which type of advisor, recommendations on how to improve advising, and how advising affected persistence in STEM. Focus groups ranged from two to five participants and lasted from 40 min to 1 h, and all participants were given a gift card for their participation. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. All procedures were reviewed and approved by the Chapman University Institutional Review Board, IRB-23-36. Data Analysis and Reliability All four authors independently read through all five transcripts and developed a broad list of codes to apply to the data. We then met to discuss these codes, pointing out places of similarity and differences, and refining the broad codes into more specific codes, coming to a consensus on a draft codebook. In addition to these open codes created by the team, we also included all CCW tenets within our draft codebook. We then went back to the data and independently coded using this consensus draft codebook. Finally, we met over three 2 h Zoom meetings to discuss every transcript and code applied. During these meetings, we used Dedoose software to visualize codes applied to each excerpt to easily identify places of consensus and disagreement. When a disagreement in code application arose, the team discussed whether this disagreement was from an unclear codebook definition or because the current codes did not capture the excerpt well. The team would then reach consensus on either the definition of the code or if a new code or subcode needed to be added to the codebook; refer to Figure 1 for an example of this process. The final applied codes led to the following themes: types of advising (subcode examples: academic and program), first generation (subcode examples: pressure, independence), effect of advising on STEM identity, motivations for seeking advising (subcode examples: course selection, career options, reassurance), negative outcomes of advising (subcode examples: being judged, not prioritized), positive outcomes of advising (subcode examples: affirmation, sense of belonging), structural barriers to advising (subcode examples: hard to locate resources, scheduling issues) and recommendations for advising. FIGURE 1. Open in a new tab Data analysis procedure. Throughout the data collection and analysis process, all authors engaged in conversations around their social identities, positionalities (expanded upon more below), and power relationships to address relational competence ( Jones et al. , 2013 ). This allowed the authors to balance both their lens as scholars and their personal experiences in data interpretation, while relying on co-authors to provide feedback on their interpretations. Positionality of authors. The authors hold a diversity of identities, and acknowledge that these identities likely shaped our contributions to this project and the interpretations of the data. Author 1 was an FGC undergraduate student in STEM and is now an Assistant Professor in biology and a program advisor for biology majors. They identify as white, queer, and nonbinary. Author 4 identifies as an Asian man who was a continuing generation college student; he is currently a faculty member in biology who previously served as a faculty advisor to biology majors. Author 2 identifies as a White queer woman and was a continuing generation undergraduate in college and the first in her family to attend graduate school. She is currently an Associate Professor in psychology with an affiliation in engineering; she serves as an undergraduate program advisor. Author 3 is a Black man and an Associate Professor who teaches and advises in a college of education. He was a continuing generation undergraduate in college and the first in his family to attend graduate school. He was also the former director of First-Generation Programs at the university and serves as an undergraduate program advisor. Each of our identities created unique points of relation to the students who participated in our focus groups, whether it was through shared identities or experiences, or holding positions within our professional lives (such as program advisors or organizational affiliations with first-generation college students). On the other hand, each of us held identities and experiences that were also in contrast to those of the student participants. This shaped our project in several ways. For example, all of the authors had invested interest in the research questions and supporting FGC students. During our data analysis, we engaged in dialogic reliability, which centers both discussion and critique of how each researcher interpreted the data ( Akerlind, 2005 ). This allowed each author to draw upon our own experiences as individuals and expertise as scholars, while also ensuring that no one author over-interpreted the data. FINDINGS Students perceived their identity and related experiences of being first in one's family to attend college shaped their interactions with academic and program advisors. In the sections below, we outline seven major themes that explore the experiences of first-generation college students in relation to advising. We start our findings by describing our first theme, Differentiation between Academic Advisors and Program Advisors, which describes why FGC students sought advising relationships in the first place. We do this to a) distinguish between the two different types of advising discussed within this paper (program advisors and academic advisors), and b) illustrate how the different types of advising (program vs academic) impacted student identities and motivations. Across both types of advising, common reasons for seeking advice and information among FGC students were academic planning, course selection, and degree progress. The next three themes discuss how first-generation college students’ identities and capital came up during their interactions with advisors. These three themes include: 2) balancing independence and pressures to succeed when seeking help, 3) feeling seen: FGC students’ identity as a source for empowerment and motivation, and 4) wanting reassurance and support from advisors. These three themes describe the tension of being an FGC student: at times feeling the burden of expectations and simultaneously feeling greater drive and motivation to overcome obstacles when working with advisors, and the need for reassurance and validation. In these first four themes, we specifically connect the tenets of community cultural wealth to our data, focusing on both navigational capital and how other capitals intersect with navigational. To aid readers in following the complexity of our findings, we provide a table ( Table 2 ) that clearly organizes the first four themes that directly speak to capitals, their descriptions, and which capitals were found within those themes. TABLE 2. Summary of four themes that included FGC students’ use of capitals, organized by theme and capital Theme number Theme name Description Capital(s) 1 Differentiation between Academic Advisors and Program Advisors FGC students purposely sought different types of advisors (academic vs program) based on the types of information or advice they needed. Navigational 2 Balancing Independence and Pressures to Succeed when Seeking Help FGC students often cited at times conflicting tensions between a motivation to be independent and not needing help from others (leading to a hesitance to go to academic advisors) and pressure to succeed academically (which promoted the use of advisors) Aspirational motivates Navigational Resistance influences use of Navigational 3 Feeling Seen: FGC students’ Identity as a Source for Empowerment and Motivation FGC students highlighted how their FGC identity shaped their interactions with advisors, citing how their identity often motivated them to succeed academically Aspirational motivates Navigational Aspirational as a form of Resistant 4 Wanting Reassurance and Support from Advisors FGC students highlighted how they sought out academic advising to receive confirmation that they were on the right path academically and sometimes revealed their FGC identity to advisors as context for wanting reassurance to solicit other forms of academic support Navigational and Social simultaneously Open in a new tab While community cultural wealth helped us understand our first four themes, our final three themes did not fit under the CCW framework and are thus reported as standalone themes without an explicit connection to capitals. In our remaining three themes, we discuss 5) the added complexity of how having intersectional identities shaped students’ experiences with advising, 6) negative experiences that FGC students had during their advising sessions, and 7) a section on student recommendations for changes to advising. We felt that this was an important theme to include within the findings, as it centers the students’ agency and voices when calling for change. Differentiation between Academic Advisors and Program Advisors. In many cases, FGC students sought out different types of information or advice based on whether the source of advising was academic staff or faculty program advisors. Many FGC students sought out academic advisors for higher-level academic planning advice, including general course selection and transfer credits. For example, Meg highlighted how she went to advisors to ask about fulfilling the language requirement, stating: “I contact my academic advisor, right around freshman year…because I wanted to see what I can do about my language requirement… I wasn't able to take the placement exam and was also thinking about transferring into a different major.” Similarly, Emma cited how she approached academic advisors to receive assistance with transferring credits: “I have to have a lot of interaction [with academic advisors] and a lot of form filling out.” The relationship with academic advisors was often characterized as highly task-oriented and/or included specific questions about general course selection, degree progress, and other aspects of academic planning. Often, interactions with academic staff were in the form of emails or brief visits, which differed from seeking advice from program advisors. In contrast, FGC students sought out program advisors, who are full-time faculty members at the present institution, for mentorship and insight into their professional futures, including advice on graduate school, specific career knowledge, and long-term academic planning. For instance, Lydia highlighted how she would go to their faculty advisors to ask about career options, [I ask] class-wise, what I need to take, what if I'm going into graduate school and what graduate schools for my major would be like. Or [I'll ask about] med school, and how that looks like [for] an application… my faculty advisors are superb. Ashton cites a similar experience of recognizing that his faculty advisor had followed a pathway he was interested in. “[My advisor] is also a [physical therapist], and I want to go down that route… so he knew a lot more [about this career option] …that was very beneficial to me.” The relationship with program advisors was often described more positively than academic advisors and often with a sense of admiration and trust, especially when the faculty member's career path aligned with the student's goals. Students’ ability to recognize which advisor may be better for their specific needs highlights the students’ use of navigational capital, as they were able to seek out help specific to their needs. Even though FGC students may not have had previous knowledge of the different advising types within the institution before arriving, they were able to learn and then implement new knowledge to both save time and get specific assistance from the type of advisor who would be in the best position to assist. In other words, FGC students learned how to navigate a complex system of multi-tiered advising to advance through their degree. In the next sections, we explore how students described their FGC student identity influencing their experiences both in initially seeking help and then during the advisor interactions. Balancing Independence and Pressures to Succeed when Seeking Help. FGC students often reported balancing their hyper-independence with the acute pressure to excel academically (aspirational capital: the desire to persist within academic and career pursuits), driven by their desire to justify their place in college (resistant capital: knowledge and skills fostered through oppositional behavior that allows students to challenge inequality). This feeling of pressure to succeed was frequently mentioned by students when describing their navigation of advising experiences. Lydia, for instance, noted: You feel like you have to prove yourself all the time…It's like the societal pressure that you want to do a lot more…And so going to academic advising, I [let them know], ‘Oh yeah, I'm a first gen.’ Disclosure often led to reassurance from advisors, as Lydia further reflected, “that kind of helped ease my concerns just because I feel like once you bring that up…they made me feel like I was doing really good.” In this way, aspirational capital of wanting to succeed in their degree motivated students to utilize navigational capital to seek out reassurance that they were on the right track. However, this pressure also led students to take steps to “prove” that they were doing well and over-prepare for meetings. For instance, Emma shared how being an FGC student made her feel like she had to spend additional time preparing before meeting with an advisor: “I think there has been an impact in that I feel I need to be the most prepared I can be,” she commented. She continued: I need to ask a lot, a lot of questions…it doesn't feel good to be thinking, oh, I'm the only one in this situation, because I don't know anything. But that's what they're there for. And that's what I tell myself when I go to an academic advisor, that's their job. They want to help me, but that mentality of you kind of have to do it yourself first, and then get to them. In both Emma and Lydia's examples, we see how students engage in both resistant and navigational capital. Emma and Lydia both felt that they needed to prove themselves to dispel stereotypes or assumptions that FGC students are less prepared or unqualified to attend the university. This heightened pressure to succeed is in part due to their desire to resist these stereotypes. This led to the employment of both resistant and navigational capital, which they used when seeking out advisors that they regarded as holders of knowledge. Alex also spoke of how he knew that as an FGC student, he would need to rely on navigational capital to make the hidden curriculum, the covert pattern of “rules” that prepare students to function within academia ( Giroux and Pena, 1979 ), visible. He states: As a first gen, I feel very self-dependent on myself to reach out to a lot of people and navigate my way through college, that no one in my family, [at] least, is here to guide … And when I go to the academic advising centers, and I tell them that I'm a first gen… it's really nice, it's really comforting. It feels like I'm talking to an actual human being who's there to help me and who's there to care for me. Growing up as an immigrant, like someone who is navigating yourself through all of this here…without a lot of guidance that my parents could give me. Alex, Emma, and Lydia all provide examples of students engaging in navigational (and at times resistant and aspirational) capital to seek out the information that academic advisors may hold. However, there were a few students whose hyper-independence led them to seek out advising only after all other options had been exhausted. In these cases, we found that students’ use of resistance capital potentially came into conflict with their use of navigational capital. For example, Victoria mentioned how this feeling of self-reliance made her exhaust other options before going to a program advisor: As a first-generation [college] student, you're accustomed to doing everything on your own, kind of, because that's how it's always been. But similarly, [there are] those questions that you, sometimes have to go to that program advisor for are more in depth, and you really can't find that information anywhere else. Sadi shared a similar experience as Victoria, highlighting her reluctance to go to their advisors given the feeling of self-reliance, and how she spent additional time attempting to identify the answer to their advising questions by herself first, saying: “I feel like I'm generally a person who doesn't ask for help…And it would take less energy to ask somebody else than for me to find the answer on my own.” Here, Sadi decided that her use of navigational capital was better deployed in finding the answers herself instead of relying on help from advisors. In our participants, we found that students understood that advisors contained knowledge that could be useful to them; students were often attempting to negotiate their own self-reliance with the need for advising. Some students drew upon their aspirational capital when seeking advice from advisors, as they believed that advisors could help them succeed academically. Other students were concerned about how they would be perceived as an FGC student, leading to overpreparing for meetings or, at times, exhausting every possible option before seeking help. In both of these instances, students’ use of resistant capital shaped their use of navigational capital when seeking advice. Feeling seen: FGC students’ Identity as a Source for Empowerment and Motivation. While the previous section described how their FGC student identity increased their pressure to succeed while simultaneously being independent, some FGC students saw their identity as empowering and motivating. In these cases, students often utilized several capitals at once, including navigational, aspirational, and resistant. For instance, although Tia commented on feeling pressure from being an FGC student, she also felt a sense of empowerment. She described how these feelings were influenced by her advisor's comment at a welcome event for computer science majors: Yeah, I feel like it's more empowering because I'm doing this for myself…There is a pressure, but I'm here because I want to. No one really pushed me…And the application and everything, I did it myself. I chose the school myself. In terms of calculating all the costs, even the FAFSA stuff, and all that, my parents don't really help me or anything, like I just do it all myself. It is empowering…. When [my advisors] said that STEM is for everyone, that really did make me feel included and that I can do this, even if I do feel the pressure of having to represent certain groups, like, I can do this. It is for me, and I don't have to be like a genius to be in computer science. Here, Tia showcased how her use of navigational capital (being able to figure out how to navigate the system) felt empowering to her, and her aspirational capital (achieving her dreams of being in STEM) came from herself. In this quote, Tia also shows how an interaction with an advisor can help cement these feelings. Similarly, when discussing how her FGC identity shaped her interactions with advising, Sadi reflected more broadly on her academic journey and how her FGC student identity played a role in her aspirations (aspirational capital) and resistance (resistance capital) at the university: I'm here [in college] because I want to be and it is empowering to know that I'm here because of myself. No one's making me be here. And no one made me choose this hard major. So, when times get tough, I remind myself, I chose this, this is something that I wanted. I shouldn't be here, you know, this isn't the path that statistically, I'm supposed to be here. You know, it would make sense for me to be like, I don't know, in jail, or teen mom or something. And it's because of me, because I made myself get here. Much like the previous section on balancing pressures to succeed, the students’ empowerment and motivation were informed by their FGC student identities and the associated resistant, aspirational, and navigational capital they possessed. Their aspirations to succeed as the first in their families to attend college, alongside a deep desire to prove people wrong and defy statistical expectations, reflect both aspirational and resistant capital. This was further reinforced by their strong sense of self-determination and self-efficacy, key elements of aspirational capital and resilience. Together, these forms of capital not only fueled their motivation but also enhanced their ability to navigate the university system in pursuit of their success. In this role, advisors played a key part in helping support students. Wanting Reassurance and Support from Advisors. Many FGC students sought reassurance from advisors that they were on the correct path. This showcases students’ use of navigational capital, as they knew that asking for guidance from an advisor would assist in their ability to finish their degree, as well as social capital (in this case, mentors who provide guidance and opportunities). For instance, Quinn highlighted how she went to an advisor for the first time the year before graduation to have her course selections checked, “The first time I met up with an academic advisor was three weeks ago, and I'm a junior… And that was only because I wanted to triple, quadruple check that I had everything in place.” Here, Quinn indicates that she does not have any specific questions about advising but instead seeks validation of her academic plans and to ensure that she remains on track to graduate. Tammi echoes this with her experiences, I met with some advisors [last semester]. I showed him my schedule. I kind of wanted reassurances, like, “Am I on the right path? Is this too much work? Is it too little work? Should I be taking these classes? Should I move things around?” Like Quinn, Tammi describes seeking help with academic advising not because of having any specific questions, but more for general confirmation and reassurance that she was on the right track to achieve their academic goals. Relatedly, many FGC students indicated that they sought emotional validation. Moreover, this theme highlights how FGC students often seek validation and connection alongside information. For example, Lydia described how disclosing her FGC student identity facilitated reassurance: “that kind of helped ease my concerns… They made me feel like I was doing really good.” Similarly, once Tia revealed her FGC student identity, she felt reassured by the academic advisor: When I mentioned that, I was like, also first gen, which is why this whole thing is hard for me. Like he was definitely like, okay, like, relax on the class load. Like he wanted me to do less, which is understandable. Quinn agreed with this, describing how “[the advisors] reassure me… they understand [how] it's different to be a first gen [college student] … they honestly were just super helpful with me, they're a lot more patient with me.” For Lydia, Tia, and Quinn, disclosing their FGC student identity, a perhaps vulnerable moment given the hyper-independence of FGC students, ultimately led to reassurance and validation from their academic advisors. These experiences highlight how FGC students use navigational capital to monitor their educational progress and quell anxieties related to managing their academic requirements, but also how they utilize particular forms of social capital through accessing and developing supportive relationships with their advisors. Furthermore, in gaining reassurance from advisors, FGC students were able to use their social capital to support their own aspirations and motivations to persist. Unique Advising Experiences based on the Intersection of FGC Students' Identity, Gender, and/or Race While the previous sections highlight the overall experiences with students in advising, we also explore how students perceived their intersectional identities influencing their advising interactions. Intersectionality is a lens to view how overlapping social identities interact, leading to particular experiences of oppression and privilege ( Crenshaw, 1993 ). For many students, the intersection of their gender, race, or other identities shaped their advising experiences in particular ways. For example, several participants felt that their gender identity increased the pressures they felt in academic settings, particularly in fields dominated by men, such as STEM. Lydia described the compounded challenges of being both an FGC student and a woman in STEM, noting the added expectation to prove herself: So, I was breaking down and reached out to my faculty advisor at the time… I [was] crying in there and [talking with them allowed me to be] a lot more open… I kind of brought it up because I was like, I hate being a first gen [and] a girl… I have a lot of pressure being a first gen and a STEM major, like this really hard. And they're like, you're going to beat the odds. They just honestly do put a lot of reassurance and [supporting] who you are. Lydia goes on to highlight how her intersectional identity of being a FGC student, Mexican, and identifying as a woman further shaped her interactions with their advisors. She describes how she almost became overwhelmed with the pressure to prove herself before her advisors recommended that she take more self-care days. Her advisors communicated to Lydia that she was not alone, increasing her sense of belonging: Being a female and a STEM major… I'm always studying… being a girl is super tough. You always feel like you have to prove yourself… my advisor [once told me] you need to stop stressing… and so this semester it just really hit home. I have been so much more confident, calm, and sleeping so much more… I take self-care days [now]. [My advisors] really do hone in on - like you are not alone just because you're a girl, just because you're a first gen or that you're Mexican. You're awesome, like the way you are. Similarly, Mia reflected on the expectation to succeed while representing multiple marginalized identities, emphasizing how being a woman in computer science added another layer of pressure: I feel like a lot of times…I'm just kind of on my own, like, I have to do everything perfectly… I can't fail a class…I do reach out for help. But also, being a woman…people are watching me, I have to represent…bringing ethnicity, first gen, and being a woman in CS [computer science], I feel like I have to represent all those groups because I'm like the only person there with those factors in common. And it's kind of like a sink or swim kind of moment. Students also described how they believed their racial and cultural identities influenced how they were perceived by advisors and peers. Sadi, an Asian American adoptee, discussed how assumptions about race influenced how advisors and peers interacted with her, Well, [my program advisor] is an Asian man. So, there have been times where he talks to me like it's normal that I'm there. When, to me, this is a huge barrier that is crossed. And I think that's because of my Asianness, people expect me to be here. But to me, you know, my parents basically flunked out of college, you know, so to me, it feels like I'm crossing that boundary. Here, Sadi describes how her faculty advisor seemed to assume her college attendance was expected and “normal” simply because of their Asian identity, reflecting stereotypes that normalize college-going for Asian students and lead advisors and peers to take their presence in higher education for granted. Nick also reflected on how his racial identity shaped his interactions, both with family and with advisors, I think being Hispanic comes with its own set of difficulties with the lack of [connection], sometimes a language barrier, with your family [preventing] just being able to talk about what you're doing in school. That can be tough sometimes. And then not having that connection with advisors who have that same type of background. Here, Nick shares how his racial identity created a sense of cultural disconnect with both family and advisors. He shared the role that language barriers and differences in cultural understanding made it difficult to fully communicate his college experience with his family. At the same time, he felt a lack of connection with advisors who didn't share his racial and cultural background, underscoring the dissonance between his lived experience as a person of color and the white cultural norms and forms of capital valued by the university. Here, we highlight how students’ perceptions of their intersectional identities manifested in their advising experiences. For Lydia, her interaction with her advisor created positive feelings of being a Mexican woman in STEM by giving her reassurance that she belonged. For Mia, Sadi, and Nick, they had more difficult experiences, either with the process of reaching out for help (Mia), being stereotyped (Sadi), or lacking a cultural connection (Nick). Negative Experiences or Outcomes Although most FGC students reported positive advising experiences, others described encounters that left them feeling misunderstood or dismissed, sometimes due to their FGC student identity. This section describes how FGC students ran into personnel or institutional barriers that affected their ability to get help. For instance, Tammi described how her faculty advisor seemed to assume that students were coming in with significant experience with college and the norms surrounding college: The first faculty advisor I mentioned, he needs to recognize that he's been teaching here for [many] years. I feel like he just doesn't understand that people are new and people don't have college experience and [that] they don't have references that have college experience. Tammi then reflected on how this advisor seemed not to provide validation, stating how the advisor responded curtly to Tammi's nervousness about courses and fitting in. “He just said, ‘you'll be fine’. And that was the extent of it… he didn't give a very thorough response.” Here, Tammi conveys how the advisor is missing the perspective of an FGC student and did not validate her feelings. Others shared negative experiences during advising encounters where students lacked knowledge or had not yet figured out their career aspirations. Nick, for instance, described an interaction with a faculty advisor. “There was a specific person who, it felt like I was asking stupid questions the whole time,” he described. “And so, it felt like he was [thinking], ‘why are you asking me this?’ And so, it almost felt like I didn't belong.” Quinn shared how she felt judged when she told a faculty advisor she did not know what careers she wanted to pursue yet, I said, I didn't really know [what I wanted to do]. And [they replied], ‘why don't you know’ [said in a snarky tone], you know what I mean? [Then they asked] have you done an internship? No, not yet… I feel like maybe just like first gen and identity wise, it was already hard enough to come here. Quinn shares how she felt the pressure of other students already knowing about career options and internship opportunities, and how the advisor's questioning made her question her capabilities and belonging. Similar to Quinn, Sadi recounted how she felt that academic advisors did not treat her seriously at first since she had not declared a STEM major yet. “Because I came in undeclared, [the advisors] weren't really invested in my future, per se. Because I didn't have a clear path… every time that I've tried to talk to them, they just sort of redirected me to somebody else.” Interestingly, when Sadi attempted to declare a STEM major, she again felt resistance and had negative experiences with advising. Sadi highlights how her faculty advisor in her intended major gave a dismissive initial response: I went in, I told them, this [major] is what I want. And he was like, okay, well, you're not going to declare it now. Take a class. And if it's hard, and you don't want it, then you never have to see me again. But if, after taking, you know, Gen Chem, or Gen Bio, or both, you feel like this is something that you're ready to sign up for, then I'd be more than happy to meet with you again. For Sadi, this interaction with the advisor was discouraging and sent a message that struggling in introductory STEM courses—or even perceiving them as difficult—meant students were not suited for the major. Such messaging can be especially alienating for FGC students, potentially deterring them from pursuing STEM pathways altogether. Sadi recognized this messaging and how this may drive away other FGC students, stating, At the time, I thought it was pretty funny [that my advisor stated that], because I was like, ‘Well, why wouldn't I be here; obviously, I want [to declare] this [major]’, but it was definitely for the best… other students [may] try and realize they don't want any part of what a STEM major entails. And I respect that, to an extent. While Sadi appeared to acknowledge the advisor's position, these interactions highlight how negative experiences with advising could affect students’ aspirational capital by deterring them from the field. In these cases, students utilized their navigational capital to seek guidance and were met with negative faculty attitudes. They had to then use their resistant and aspirational capital to recognize that STEM was for them and continue on their degree path in spite of these interactions. In sum, this highlights the extra work that FGC students have to engage in to both find information and be resilient when faced with negative attitudes relating to their identities. Recommendation for Advisors and Advice on Improving Advising When asked what advice they would have to improve advising experiences within their majors, FGC college students provided three main recommendations. First, students described wanting advisors to be knowledgeable about the unique pressures that FGC students endure. For example, Tia said “[having] an advisor who specifies first generation students…I feel like that'd be really helpful, especially for people who like [are] on their own. And they want someone to look up to…who was like a first generation and went through college, put themselves through it.” Multiple students described how advisors made assumptions about students’ knowledge and familiarity with certain norms of college, often not recognizing FGC students’ identities. Similarly, students shared how they often hesitated seeking academic advisors due to their perceived need to be independent, with advisors who were dismissive or not supportive exacerbating their hesitancy to seek advising. Students described how advisors recognizing these identities and pressures more frequently would help promote their sense of belonging and enable advisors to connect with FGC students more. Second, students described wanting advisors to be patient, kind, and supportive (or avoid transactional or dismissive tones). Many FGC students shared how they sought academic advising to receive reassurance or validation on their courses and career trajectories, but felt like their advisors did not empathize or were dismissive of their concerns. For example, when Antony was asked what he would recommend for changes to advising in the future, he said, “And I think having that patience, but also be helpful, because, you know, I think it's been clear that you know, we were a little more timid, when we first started.” Finally, students articulated wanting structural changes to promote advising. Several students also highlighted how structural barriers made it challenging for them to access advising. Several of the FGC students in our study indicated that they were unsure of whom to turn to if they had questions, and also had trouble navigating complex university webpages to identify contact information. In addition, some students mentioned the importance of also giving information to parents. For example, Sadi mentioned, “I think it would also be helpful if like during orientation, giving something to the parents. Because, you know, when you're first generation, that also means your parents are also going through this for the first time.” Similarly, other FGC students described how it was hard to find a time to meet with advisors when the advisors only listed limited hours, given that the students were often juggling family and work commitments. DISCUSSION Our results shed new light on how FGC students in biology, as well as students in other STEM fields, interact with academic advisors and how their FGC identities shape these interactions. We highlight several main themes from our work. First, our results illustrate the different ways that FGC students use navigational capital when approaching academic advising. Although the FGC students in our study did not have family members who had graduated from college to provide advice for academic questions or use academic advisors, the students instead relied upon other campus resources to learn more about and utilize the academic resources available. However, our work illustrates how this navigational capital was often influenced by students’ need to be self-reliant, a pressure that FGC students have reported across college contexts ( Covarrubias et al. , 2019 ; Chang et al. , 2020 ). This pressure shaped not only how likely students were to approach academic advisors but also how they viewed appointments with advisors, with multiple FGC students reporting that they felt a need to approach academic advising appointments only after they had extensively prepared and researched information before the appointment. Our work echoes past work that has suggested that American colleges’ focus on “norms of independence” may hinder the development of FGC students ( Stephens et al. , 2012 ) who may already feel an acute need to be independent and self-reliant. Here, our work demonstrates that FGC students are navigating through these pressures and suggests that institutional messaging focusing on how college is about becoming independent may deter FGC students from seeking academic advising. Second, our work illustrates how FGC students’ identities as the first in their families to attend college can positively shape their navigational capital. For instance, students shared how their FGC student identity often motivated and empowered them to seek academic advice, citing a pressure to succeed as well as a need to receive reassurance from advisors that they were on the right path academically. Our results extend the growing body of literature that examines how FGC students and other students from historically marginalized backgrounds use navigational capital in college, demonstrating how the FGC students’ identity can positively influence students’ motivation ( Irlbeck et al. , 2014 ; Próspero and Vohra-Gupta, 2007 ). Thus, our work highlights the strengths of FGC students and how this identity can provide students with greater navigational capital to approach and seek help from an at-times complex landscape of academic advising. Third, our work demonstrates strong overlap in FGC students between navigational capital and aspirational and resistant capitals when working with academic advising. This connection between capitals has been documented in other contexts ( Denton et al. , 2020 ; Sausner et al. , 2024 ; Ruttlen and Zamora, 2025 ). For instance, we highlight how FGC students’ career and academic aspirations often informed how they maneuvered through academic advising (i.e., navigational capital). As an example, multiple FGC students indicated that they sought help from academic advisors because they needed career guidance or asked specific questions about careers or their majors. Similarly, other FGC students reported how their career goals and aspirations made them more determined to succeed even in the face of perceived negative comments or assumptions from their academic advisors, demonstrating how aspirational capital can drive FGC students’ navigational capital. Similarly, several FGC students demonstrate resistance capital when describing how they challenged perceived inequities by becoming more determined to succeed in the face of advisors describing STEM as “hard” or not feeling understood by their advisors. Finally, our results highlight how the intersectional nature of FGC students’ other identities often interact with the FGC student identity to shape students’ interactions with advising, supporting past work that has examined the complexities of these interactions ( Santa-Ramirez et al. , 2022 ; Jackson et al. , 2022 ; Allison, 2024 ). Our students expressed how their gender, race, ethnicity, and cultural identities all shaped how they navigated academic advising and their experiences when working with advisors, with students who had other historically marginalized identities reporting how they often felt additional pressures due to these identities. Our work found that these additional identities shaped FGC students’ navigational, aspirational, and resistance capitals, and also influenced how they interacted with academic advisors and how they felt after each interaction with an advisor. Our work supplements the current literature on academic advising within biology, the life sciences, and STEM. For instance, our work supports the key finding by Rozhenkova et al. (2022) that academic advising can play a major role in shaping STEM students’ decisions to stay or leave their STEM major. Although we only included students who were STEM majors and did not interview students who were previously STEM majors but had left STEM, our findings indicate that many FGC students had negative experiences with advising that led them to feel judged or not prioritized. These experiences likely contributed to a lower sense of belonging among these students and could potentially cause these students to be more likely to leave STEM. These findings are particularly salient for FGC students in biology, given that equity gaps often exist in biology courses and that FGC students often report a lower sense of belonging in biology ( Harackiewicz et al. , 2014 ; Beltran et al. , 2020 ; Jantzer et al. , 2021 ). In addition, at many institutions, introductory biology courses are taught in larger lecture sections, which may contribute to lower student engagement and performance ( Scott et al. , 2017 ). Thus, negative experiences with academic advising may exacerbate the challenges facing FGC students in biology. Our work thus highlights the critical nature of academic advising, particularly for FGC students in biology and STEM, in shaping students’ STEM journeys. Second, our work also aligns with the findings of Heekin (2013) , which found that biology majors felt more comfortable with faculty as academic advisors so that the students could ask more in-depth questions about career paths and in biology. Our students, likewise, highlighted how they often preferred going to faculty program advisors for career-related questions, indicating that some of the FGC students in our study had navigational capital to recognize the differences between staff and faculty advisors and gravitated towards faculty advisors for career-related questions. This pattern suggests that many FGC students in biology would benefit from having access to a biology faculty as an advisor and mentor in a formal capacity, with the faculty advisor able to provide more targeted and discipline-specific career advice for biology majors. Finally, our work extends the current STEM education literature on how FGC students interact with academic advisors, providing qualitative insight for past quantitative studies that have found that FGC students’ interactions with advising can play major roles in student success ( Swecker et al. , 2013 ; Leonard, 2025 ). Our work generates new insight into how students’ FGC identity and their often interlocking, intersectional identities shape their interactions with academic advisors and center their voices, providing novel perspectives into how these students in biology and other STEM disciplines use navigational capital in their interactions with academic advisors. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INSTITUTIONS AND ADVISORS Our results highlight how institutions, faculty advisors, and staff advisors can better support FGC students. First, our work supports the need for institutions to provide greater training and professional development for advisors on working with FGC students. Past work has found that advisors report very limited to nonexistent training for working with FGC students, leading to low confidence in working with FGC students ( Keene, 2020 ). Those who did report receiving training highlight how the training is often limited to a half-day or day-long workshop rather than sustained, continuous professional development. Thus, we call for an increase in training to academic advisors that touches upon FGC student identities. For instance, the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) provides a 4-week, online asynchronous course for academic advisors on working with FGC students ( NACADA, 2026 ), as well as an FGC student advising community ( Desjardins, 2026 ). Similarly, we call for greater training specific to life sciences and STEM majors, given the unique pressures that students in these disciplines face. For instance, the NSF INCLUDES Aspire Alliance partnered with NACADA to generate an evidence-based guide for academic advisors in STEM fields that provides recommendations for working with FGC students in STEM ( Bantawa et al. , unpublished data ). Additional partnerships that lead to life sciences or STEM-specific professional development for academic advisors will be beneficial for students in these disciplines. Secondly, we encourage advisors to participate in professional development when presented with opportunities to do so. Our work reinforces some of the key recommendations from the existing professional development resources. For example, we recommend that advisors be aware that not all students may have existing navigational capital and that FGC students may be unfamiliar with many of the norms of college upon entering postsecondary institutions. The FGC students in our study reported how many advisors often assumed that the students knew how college and STEM worked, often leading to greater confusion or marginalization when working with their advisors. Advisors should thus be aware that students may be interpreting interactions with advisors differently than how advisors intended, consistent with other work suggesting that advisors’ beliefs may not match how biology students interpret their experiences ( Matusz et al. , 2025 ). Similarly, our work also suggests how advisors reaching out directly to students and explaining the benefits and norms of meeting with an advisor may help guide more FGC students to meet with advisors, given FGC students’ pressures to remain independent. We also encourage advisors who were FGC students to discuss their experiences in college with their peers who were not FGC students. Past work has found that advisors who were previously FGC students interact with FGC students differently than advisors who were continuing generation college students ( Rankin, 2025 ), suggesting that the sharing of experiences may be beneficial for developing greater reflection and understanding of the unique pressures that FGC students in STEM face when interacting with advisors. We also recommend that institutions and advisors provide greater access to advising. Many of our students cited how it was challenging to find a time to meet with academic advisors when the advisors only posted limited availability. Given that FGC students are more likely to hold off-campus jobs than their continuing generation college peers ( Pascarella et al. , 2004 ; RTI International, 2019 ), we encourage both faculty and staff advisors to provide flexibility with meeting times and modalities. In addition, it is critical that institutions and advisors provide an adequate number of advisors who can meet with students on time. Given the documented high rates of staff advisor turnover and attrition across the United States ( Marshall et al. , 2016 ; Ewing-Cooper et al. , 2024 ), often caused by high advising caseloads ( Soria et al. , 2023 ), we encourage colleges and universities to explore ways to hire more academic advisors, develop models where faculty supplement academic advisors by providing additional advising (and are provided adequate course releases or compensation to do so), and increase benefits, compensation, and supports for academic advisors to reduce burnout and attrition and increase the availability for FGC students and all students in accessing advising. Finally, we draw from the literature to provide several recommendations for advisors who work with biology and other STEM students. First, past work has found that instructors who conduct value affirmation interventions for first-year undergraduate biology majors can improve FGC students’ performance and retention, suggesting that academic advisors may also be able to utilize psychosocial interventions when working with FGC students to promote positive outcomes ( Harackiewicz et al. , 2014 ). In addition, Vision & Change , a national report on undergraduate biology education, calls for integrating undergraduate research opportunities both inside and beyond the curriculum, given the well-documented academic, professional, and affective benefits for undergraduate students ( Seymour et al. , 2004 ; AAAS, 2010 ; Jones et al. , 2010 ). However, there remain major gaps in who participates in research, with FGC students less likely to report participating in research experiences compared with their generation peers ( Kuh, 2008 ; Finley and McNair, 2013 ). Thus, we encourage biology and STEM advisors to discuss research and its benefits with students and provide concrete recommendations for students on how to get involved in research. Many institutions will have an office of undergraduate research, and advisors should familiarize themselves with resources and guides from such offices, as well as internal and external funding opportunities for students to conduct research. While students at two-year colleges may have fewer internal research opportunities, advisors at all institutions should become familiar with nationwide research opportunities that may be of interest to biology majors nationwide, including the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates ( National Science Foundation, 2026 ), the National Institute of Health's Summer Internship Program ( National Institute of Health, 2026 ), and the Amgen Scholars Program ( Amgen, 2026 ). Advisors can thus play a pivotal role in promoting FGC students’ knowledge of and interest in undergraduate research. Finally, advisors who work with biology majors should also be aware that many bio majors may be interested in pursuing research careers or careers in medicine, allied health, or related professions. However, FGC students may not be as familiar with these career options or the requirements for applying, and may feel greater stress or pressure ( Chang, 2016 ; Henrichsen and Keenan, 2023 ; Symes, 2024 CITE). We thus encourage advisors to familiarize themselves with these career pathways and connect with campus resources (e.g., a college's career center) to best support their students. LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS We recognize several limitations of our work. First, our work was conducted at one institution, and specific geographic and institutional factors may shape students’ experiences with advising. In addition, we acknowledge that our sample includes students from across a diversity of STEM majors, each of which may have different cultural contexts within the major, as well as different advisors who communicate with students differently. However, we view this diversity of identities and STEM majors included in our population as a strength, allowing us to capture a broad lens in FGC students’ experiences with advising. Given the diversity of different types of academic advising that life sciences majors see at different institutions, we hope that our results provide insight to faculty and advisors across a broad range of institutions. We also highlight how very few of our students cited discipline-specific influences when describing their interactions with advising and how their FGC student identity shaped these experiences, suggesting that our results are likely broadly applicable to FGC students across biology majors and other STEM fields. Finally, we recognize that our population only included students who are currently in STEM and did not include the voices of students who may have been a STEM major previously and have since left STEM. Despite these limitations, our work provides one of the first examinations of how FGC students in STEM navigate academic advising at an R2 institution, providing unique insight into how these students’ identities shape their motivations and interactions with advisors. We call on future work to expand our research to incorporate additional institutional contexts, including at 2-y colleges, and to examine how specific attributes of academic advising may influence students’ experiences. In addition, future research is needed to better understand the perspectives of academic advisors and faculty members and how they interact with or think about students’ FGC identities. 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