{"id":152246,"date":"2026-04-09T15:00:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T19:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=152246"},"modified":"2026-04-09T14:43:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:43:32","slug":"honoring-family-legacies-by-opening-doors-for-first-generation-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/honoring-family-legacies-by-opening-doors-for-first-generation-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Honoring Family Legacies by Opening Doors for First-Generation Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months into his freshman year, economics major Ervin Xhemali was stunned to see a few thousand dollars in his student account. As the first in his family to navigate a four-year university, Xhemali assumed there had been an error; he didn’t want to spend money that wasn’t his.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I realized it wasn\u2019t a mistake, I was thrilled,\u201d says Xhemali, one of the inaugural recipients of the Katherine Crock Memorial Scholarship. \u201cI\u2019m financing this entire experience on my own, so every bit helps. That\u2019s money I can now put toward my future.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Xhemali, an aspiring lawyer, college once felt like a distant world reserved for others. Between traveling back-and-forth across the Atlantic Ocean to live with his parents in Albania and relatives in Chicago and Jacksonville, Florida, he constantly balanced family expectations with his own ambitions. Ultimately, Xhemali faced a difficult choice: work to support his family or focus solely on his studies. He chose both, supplementing his scholarship by working as a produce clerk at Publix and a warehouse shipper.<\/p>\n