Heath Moore

Heath Moore is a senior in the College of Arts and Science studying Medicine Health and Society who grew up in Northern Alabama with his mother and his twin sister. He had heard of Vanderbilt’s reputation and always knew that it would be a great school to go to and that the academics would be challenging.

“My mom was super pumped about the idea of me going to a school like [Vanderbilt],” Moore said. “It was basically just the hype behind it.”

If Moore had listened to his high school counselor during his freshman and sophomore years in high school, he believes he would not have applied to Vanderbilt. However, his mother’s enthusiasm and support overcame the voice of doubt from his counselor about Vanderbilt’s high academic rigor and cost of attendance making it an unrealistic goal.

“I’m from a pretty rural area and we don’t really send kids to schools like Vandy. I think that she just honestly had never had to deal with it before,” Moore said.

A large percentage of Moore’s high school class is doing trade work now, and another significant section goes to a two-year college, he said. Only a small percentage of his class went to a four-year university and most of them are hoping to move back home and use their degree there, often times in nursing and healthcare.

“A lot of people are already married and have kids,” Moore said. “Very different from my lifestyle right now.”

However, he and his twin sister, who now attends the University of Alabama on a Coca Cola scholarship, both decided to go through the four-year college application process. He decided that he wanted to apply to Vanderbilt, the University of Alabama and Auburn University, but he still needed to jump through the hoops necessary for the admissions offices to see his application such as completing financial need forms. Heath gives almost all of the credit for his and his sister’s success in the application process to his mom.

“The application process was mostly me and my family figuring out what the heck we were supposed to do,” Moore said. “My mom stayed on top of things really well. She honestly took on a lot more responsibility than most parents do. I think she did that because she really wanted to ensure that my sister and I had the best opportunities to get whatever scholarships or financial opportunities were available.”

"That identity wasn’t very salient to me when I was in high school."

The financial aid available for him at Vanderbilt was surprisingly good, Moore said. In fact, it ended up being less expensive for him to go to Vanderbilt than it would have been for him to go to either of the state schools he applied to.

When he was accepted into Vanderbilt, he knew to expect some differences between him and the rest of the freshman class, but he didn’t know how big the disparity would be.

“The wealth disparity and everybody’s backstory was so much different from mine and I definitely felt like an oddball and still kind of do,” Moore said. “I’ve become more acclimated and gotten more used to it, but it was definitely isolating, my freshman year in particular.”

Over the past four years, he has learned to be more comfortable around the extreme wealth of many Vanderbilt students, but he still notices it when people talk about their spring break plans or what their families are doing over the summer.

Moore claiming his identity as a first-generation college student is another thing that has changed over the past four years.

“That identity wasn’t very salient to me when I was in high school. In college I started to hear more about it with regards to diversity and inclusion movements,” Moore said. “When I was back home, I wasn’t a minority, and then I got here and I was in a very small group of people. I started to understand how my experience was different from some other people's.”

Vanderbilt never reached out to Moore in particular with resources on preparing for college or making the transition from high school. Moore’s wish as vice president of FirstVU is to provide future first-generation students access to the resources that he did not have. He is hoping that FirstVU will become a place where first-generation college students can come to share their struggles and successes while being at Vanderbilt. He is also hoping to create a mentorship program where freshman and sophomore students can be paired with upperclassmen who have been through similar challenges who can meet with them regularly. FirstVU also acknowledges that the diverse backgrounds of first-generation students means that their challenges will also be very diverse.

One resource that FirstVU provides is assistance in professional development. Often times, students might receive professional development advice from their parents, or be introduced to networking contacts at holiday parties with their families. When a student is first-generation, their parents are less likely to have the business connections and advice to give them a leg up in the professional world.

“A lot of my challenges were not understanding the professional world. I didn’t really understand how to network, how to try to make connections at job fairs,” Moore said. “The only thing I knew was that I needed to do well at school.”

“There are a lot of people who would be first-gen college students, but they didn’t actually make it. We were blessed by the opportunity to wear that label.”

However, Moore maintains that his biggest challenges were not academic or professional, but social and based on wealth inequality. He has been able to come to terms with the fact that an elite institution demands high academic achievement and that income is directly tied to that achievement. Vanderbilt has significant wealth inequality according to the New York Times, with 22.8 percent of students from the top 1 percent of the income scale in America, and 14.9 percent from the bottom 60 percent.

“It is absolutely nuts how wealthy the average Vanderbilt student is, and how socially isolating and weird that can be,” Moore said. “The people themselves are awesome, but it is still awkward when you find out what their parents do for a living. I am not of the same lineage of most of the people here.”

Moore thinks those opportunity differences at Vanderbilt are the most challenging thing to change. FirstVU is able to put on professional development programs with the Career Center, and VUcept can inform students about other resources, but challenging inherent social structures is more difficult.

Another focus of FirstVU is to ensure that the label of being a first-generation student is not something to be pitied. It is a component of a person’s identity and a source of inspiration and strength. Being a first-generation college student is a source of pride for Moore. He has overcome a lot of hurdles and being a first-generation student is a celebration. After graduation, he is planning to work with the Nashville Teacher Residency which will allow him to work with students with backgrounds similar to his.

“There are a lot of people who would be first-gen college students, but they didn’t actually make it. We were blessed by the opportunity to wear that label.”

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