About Breaking Barriers
Community & sense of belonging.
Our Purpose
Bryn Mawr is dedicated to serving the next generation of leaders in society— leaders like you. At Bryn Mawr, we aim to provide you with a supportive environment, allowing you to explore your interests and passions, cultivating them into meaningful change. A supportive environment depends on its community as it allows us to learn from one another and build lifelong relationships. Likewise, Breaking Barriers focuses on creating, enhancing, and sustaining mentorship, programming, and support for first-generation, and low-income students.
In Fall 2017, Breaking Barriers began as a mentorship program created by former students Yeidaly Mejia'19 and Alex Berndt'19 to support and empower first-generation and/or limited-income (FGLI) students. Today, we continue to build and expand on this thoughtful work through collaborative efforts with students, faculty, and staff, including the development of accessible programming and resources.
In doing so, we aim to provide Scholars with community and a sense of belonging at Bryn Mawr College.
To be FGLI
Students who share the FGLI identities comprise roughly 20% of the 1,300+ undergraduate student population here at Bryn Mawr.
At Bryn Mawr, the term “first-generation” or “first-gen” is defined as a student who is the first in their immediate family to attend a four-year college. In other words, a student where neither parent attended a four-year college (this does not include step-parents). The student and their siblings (if applicable) would then be considered as the first-generation in their family to attend college. This includes international students whose parents did not attend a four-year college in their home country.
The term “limited-income” refers to an individual coming from a lower socioeconomic status in which they and their family have access to a limited number of financial resources.