Before I was even born, Tech was the team I rooted for. I would not be alive today if my parents had not met here 30 years ago.
Some people walk into Tech with no clue what to expect, and some walk in with generations of expectations and advice on their shoulders. I joined the Institute as part of the latter — a third generation legacy student. I knew what to expect, while being the subject of lofty expectations.
From the moment I stepped on campus, my experience wasn’t merely my own; it was shaped by the experiences of my parents and grandparents when they were students. When I moved into my freshman dorm, my mom’s first impression was to exclaim “The furniture is the same as when I was here!” My family punctuated my first moments as a student with reminders that I was not the first Betz on Tech’s campus, and they do not expect me to be the last.
From the dorm furniture with decades of scuff marks to the first semester registration ending up in nothing but tears and three registered hours, my experiences have been uniquely communal. Every time I have called my parents to talk about how school is going, they have a story from their time as students that directly parallels mine.
Though I always have had a reasonable understanding of what laid in front of me at Tech, my experience has never been truly my own. Every struggle I have faced, my family meets with lack of gravity because they have literally been there before, and they made it out on the other side. They brush away the crushing feeling of nearly failing Linear Algebra with laughs about weed-out classes and reminisce about the fun they once had struggling to study for four finals in the span of a single reading day.
Tech has changed immensely since my parents’ and grandparents’ time, yet some aspects of campus have not changed a bit. We have slept under the same roofs, walked the same roads to class, sat in the same chairs in Skiles and heard the same whistle blow between classes. The conversation at every family function turns to Tech at some point; exciting when things are going well, but suffocating when I would rather not talk about how my classes are going.
The pressure to get accepted was just the beginning —the pressure to succeed and thrive on campus never quiets. The threat of failing a class or even just coming close would not just make me a disappointment — it would make me a generational disappointment unable to do what those before me were able to do just fine. Getting into Tech and succeeding was not an achievement, but an expectation.
There is something simultaneously supportive and suffocating about being a third generation legacy student: I have a unique level of support that comes with unique expectations. I know people who have the answers to Institute-specific questions, but those same people are a reminder that I am not special, I am just doing what they already have done.
Tech is often a place of tough love, where professors believe they are doing you a favor by “giving you a taste” of how harsh the world can be – but if my parents can get out of the institute then I’m sure I can too.