Roane State Community College

November 6, 2025

Congratulations to Jeannette Rigsby, winner of Roane State's 2025 First Generation College Student Essay Contest.

Each year, the Student Engagement Office holds the "I'm First" essay contest, asking students to speak to their experiences as the first person in their family to attend college. The winner is announced as part of the National First Generation College Student Day celebration.

Read the full text of Jeannette's winning essay below. As always, thank you to everyone who entered the contest as well as the faculty members who volunteered their time to judge the entries.

"Building Beyond the Roof," by Jeannette Rigsby

I’m first.

Not because someone told me I would be, but because I refused to believe survival was all I was meant for. I grew up in government housing. Food banks were the constant norm. Survival was always the first goal. College always felt like an expensive dream I wasn’t allowed to have. From an early age, I was cautioned against dreaming out of my tax bracket. I was told to work; it was almost as if higher education was reserved for someone with cleaner hands, for those who belonged — and I did not meet the criteria. I learned early on that intelligence does not pay the bills. A job did; stability did. I believed school was too expensive and out of reach. I was made to believe my place was to work, accept less, and unfortunately to dream smaller.

At some point survival stopped feeling like living. I was done with just keeping my head above water. I wanted to build something that would hold — a foundation, not a life lived on borrowed ground. Buying a home became the ultimate dream for the kid who grew up under the weight of yearly government inspections, always on the cusp of losing housing and dangling in limbo. Never quite secure, never quite safe.

Signing the papers and holding keys felt like golden treasure at the end of a rainbow. I stood in the doorway of a home that was finally mine. That was the dream fulfilled. Those hands that were once too dirty to hold a diploma now held keys — proof I could build stability out of instability. But a roof only protects you; it doesn't change you. That’s when I turned to the thought of reaching for education again. A degree no longer seemed an unreachable dream. It became the goal. It became the way to protect what I had built and secure what comes next.

I’m first because I sit in a classroom with full awareness of what it costs to be there. I’m surrounded by students who may never realize the cost — financial or otherwise — that it takes for me to be there. For me, every word my professor speaks is gold. Every moment feels like an earned victory. Every lesson feels like something I’m collecting not just for myself, but for everyone who will come after me. I don’t take a single second for granted, because I know what it means to have fought for that seat. 

I carry the weight in being first in everything I do here at Roane State. Student Government isn’t just a title. Peer mentor isn’t just a role. They’re ways of keeping the doors open — of making sure no one else feels like they are walking this road alone. Being first means making sure my daughter can sit in rooms I have never had access to. It means showing my son that confidence and resilience can be built, even when you start with very little. And it means honoring my husband who believes in me when I didn’t believe in myself — who carries part of this load so I can carry the rest. Without his support I wouldn’t be in this seat. Without my family, I wouldn’t have the drive to keep going. And it’s for the younger version of myself — the one who thought the roof was the dream — to prove that stability was only the beginning. 

People tell you college changes your future, but for me, it’s also changing my past. Every success here rewrites the narrative I had been fed about myself — that I wouldn’t be anything more than a job, a paycheck, a statistic. Education being too expensive, too far, too much for someone like me. Now I know the real expense isn’t in chasing education, it’s in living without it — in surviving but never thriving.

Being first is heavy, it demands sacrifice. It takes long hours, financial strain, and emotional effort. It is to know the value of every seat, every word, every opportunity. It is to understand that while gold is expensive, the real wealth comes from earning it, protecting it, and passing it on. 

I’m first, and the roof was just the beginning…