{"id":237,"date":"2025-11-04T07:14:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T12:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/?page_id=237"},"modified":"2025-11-25T16:48:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T21:48:57","slug":"newbury","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/community\/newbury\/","title":{"rendered":"College Changes a Family\u2019s Trajectory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Above:<strong> Jayde Best<\/strong> (Wheelock\u201925,\u201927) leaned on the Newbury Center\u2014a national model for helping first-gen students adjust to college life.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>BU\u2019s Newbury Center helps first-gen students find their way<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The oldest of eight children, <strong>Jayde Best<\/strong> (Wheelock\u201925,\u201927) rarely asked for help, counting on her ability to handle anything, even through the loss of her mother in high school. But when she arrived at Boston University from Maryland as a first-generation college student, going it alone made for a \u201cvery rough\u201d start.<\/p>\n<p>Then she met <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/newbury-center\/about\/meet-the-staff\/\"><strong>Maria Dykema Erb<\/strong><\/a>, executive director of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/newbury-center\/\">Newbury Center<\/a>\u2014a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2025\/bu-national-model-for-first-gen-students\/\">national model<\/a> for helping undergraduate and graduate students who would be the first in their family to graduate adjust to campus life.<\/p>\n<div class=\"responsive-video responsive-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"First-Gen BU Grad Shares Her Journey | &quot;I Ended Up Exactly Where I Wanted to Be&quot;\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/afnHZo-_3E4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>\u201cShe made me feel better about being in this rough season that I was in,\u201d Best says, \u201cand she told me that it wasn\u2019t going to be forever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The center offers academic support as well as community-building activities and mentoring programs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to be a first-generation destination,\u201d says Erb, a first-gen student herself.<\/p>\n<p>The center gave Best hope, a support group, and a push when she needed one. She learned to believe in herself and her ambitions: \u201cI\u2019ve just learned to do it scared, to do it uncomfortable, to do it unsure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2025\/graduate-jayde-best\/\">In May 2025, she graduated<\/a> from Wheelock College of Education &amp; Human Development with a bachelor of science, specializing in child and adolescent mental health. In fall 2025, she began a master\u2019s program in child life and family-centered care.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to be able to bring a smile to children\u2019s faces during some of their darkest times,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Above: Jayde Best (Wheelock\u201925,\u201927) leaned on the Newbury Center\u2014a national model for helping first-gen students adjust to college life. BU\u2019s Newbury Center helps first-gen students find their way The oldest of eight children, Jayde Best (Wheelock\u201925,\u201927) rarely asked for help, counting on her ability to handle anything, even through the loss of her mother in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1859,"featured_media":0,"parent":74,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/no-sidebars.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1859"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/237\/revisions\/636"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/74"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}