The trip gave Allen and his fellow road-trippers the opportunity to interview bigwigs, including singer-songwriter John Legend, the CEOs of Starbucks and AT&T, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the director of Teach for America and others<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe experience helped Allen and the other students \u2013 who were each the first in their families to attend college \u2013 believe they could achieve their dreams of higher education and beyond.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was lost,\u201d Allen said. \u201cThis trip taught me how to shed the noise of everyone telling me you can\u2019t do that, or you should do this. You have doubters, and you can have self-doubt yourself. It was scary how life-changing it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
The four students hadn\u2019t met before the trip, but quickly became like family.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the moment we saw each other at the airport, it was like we were long-lost friends,\u201d he said. \u201cSince we split in August, we haven\u2019t stopped talking to each other at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
None of them had driven an RV before, but after about 45 minutes of training were put behind the wheel of the 35-foot vehicle for the duration of the cross-country trip.<\/p>\n
In addition to talking with influential people, Allen said, the road-trippers also went skydiving, bungee jumping and whitewater rafting.<\/p>\n
Those experiences were all the more memorable for these particular students, who came from underprivileged backgrounds. Allen, from Winter Haven, was one of five children raised by a single mother in a two-bedroom, one-bath home.<\/p>\n
First-generation college students face challenges others don\u2019t, often including not having family members to help with admissions deadlines and financial aid applications.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know how it feels to doubt yourself about whether you can go to college or should go to college,\u201d Allen said. \u201cHonestly, just do it. Just put one foot in front of the other and keep walking straight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took a 4,000-mile roadtrip meeting celebrities, politicians and corporate CEOs \u2013 and starring in a documentary along the way \u2013 for Johnathan Allen to figure out who he is. The University of Central Florida marketing major was one of four college students crammed in an RV for a five-week journey for \u201cRoadtrip Nation,\u201d a PBS series that follows participants…","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":64977,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[31,5,6,27,1,29],"tags":[],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-64970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-of-business-administration","category-colleges","category-community","category-student-life","category-uncategorized","category-visual-arts"],"yoast_head":"\n
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