A LIGHTHOUSE IN TIMES OF DARKNESS
Key Communities helps first-generation students of color
By Miguel Alvarado Arguijo | Jan. 27, 2025
LIGHTHOUSES REPRESENT navigation through life’s challenges and difficulties. They guide ships clear of dangerous terrain and bring them to safe waters. Key Communities is a lighthouse for many CSU students.
I came to Colorado State University in Fall 2022 as a Hispanic first-generation student from my hometown of Greeley, Colorado. Being the first in my family to come to college, I didn’t know how to navigate campus. I felt as if I were alone in a new world.
Thankfully, with the encouragement of advisers in high school, I joined Key Communities and learned how to approach financial aid applications, housing, classes, and more. Key Communities is a special academic support network that helps CSU students transition to campus and thrive once here. Students in the program live in a designated residence hall during their first year and are part of seminars and study programs designed to ignite learning, leadership, self-awareness, and campus engagement – especially for those who benefit from extra support, such as first-generation students and students of color. This atmosphere of diversity and inclusion is especially helpful for students who might feel isolated on a large, mostly white campus.
Within this learning community, my first semester came and went in the blink of an eye. But my second semester came in with the cold and brought a wall.
I hit this wall, and I felt stuck. I didn’t know if I belonged at CSU. The friendships I made were strong, but I wasn’t connecting with them the way I thought I would. I saw friends walk together, and I knew I didn’t have that. It made me feel small and insignificant.
Feeling that I didn’t fit in, I started to feel guilty about coming to college in the first place. I had left my family behind, and even though they were an hour away, I felt homesick. While the drive home was short, the aching was long. Most of all, I missed not being able to help my mom in ways I knew she needed. She’s a single mother, but that didn’t limit the sacrifices she made for the family. She constantly bent backward and forward for four kids she had raised entirely on her own. Before college, I had helped her with bills; she didn’t ask for help, but it was something I needed to do.
I felt like my leaving for school was wrong, even when my mom told me it wasn’t. She wants me to pursue a college education and be the first one in the family to earn a degree. Even so, I knew I was needed at home.
The combination of these feelings led to a decline in my mental health, and I thought the only solution was to go home.
“With the help of counseling sessions, my mental health improved, and my social life improved. I made friends that made CSU feel like home.”
One day in February of my first year, I could not handle the crush of feelings anymore. I asked my Key Communities mentor if we could talk, and we soon met to discuss everything I had bottled up inside. As soon as I spoke the first words, tears were coming out of me, and they weren’t going to stop. It was a conversation I didn’t know I needed. My mentor, Jilda, allowed me to cry to her about everything I was feeling.
She asked what I needed, and I didn’t know. But Jilda knew – and I knew deep down – that these issues weren’t going to resolve themselves. She recommended that I get help from CSU Mental Health Services. I was hesitant, coming from a Hispanic background; conversations about mental health weren’t something we talked about. Feelings are kept internally, and we learn to bottle them up and carry on. Going to counseling seemed daunting, but I knew I could benefit.
Jilda walked me to my first session – a moment I will never forget. I knew if I didn’t have that support, I would not have gone. Knowing that someone at CSU, within Key Communities, wanted the best for me made me realize how much I am valued here. People like my mentor and our coordinator made me feel like maybe I do belong.
With the help of these counseling sessions, my mental health improved, and my social life improved. I made friends that made CSU feel like home. Even though we were nearing the end of the semester and the end of my first year, I felt like it was all coming along. I stayed at CSU to give myself a chance here.
When the spring semester ended, I reflected on the year. I realized the importance of this program. The Key Communities has been my lighthouse: The program helped me navigate through difficulties and challenges in my life on campus. I knew I wanted to help students the way my mentor helped me.
I write this now as a Key Communities mentor, reflecting on the strengths of a program that has shaped and influenced lives. Being a mentor has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life. I have helped students navigate their life challenges; I have watched students become the best version of themselves. I have seen students come in as quiet at the beginning of the year and go on to become confident, extroverted, and independent by the end of the year. Being in Key means there will always be someone in the corners of your life cheering you on.
Miguel Alvarado Arguijo is a third-year CSU student majoring in communication studies with a minor in media studies. He is a mentor in Key Communities after going through the program during his first year on campus.
Photo at top: Joe A. Mendoza /CSU Photography.
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