The first time second-year student Frankely Ramirez wondered whether he truly belonged at UVA, he did something that surprised even him: He cried.
He had arrived in Charlottesville as a QuestBridge National College Match Scholar, the son of immigrants, with a mother from Peru and a father from the Dominican Republic. UVA had always been his dream school, so when he told his mom he’d been admitted, “We just both started bawling,” he recalls. In a week marked by family hardship, the news offered much needed hope.
Once classes began, however, the celebratory feelings gave way to self-doubt.
“Being FGLI (first-generation, limited-income) and receiving a scholarship, I just felt like I didn’t deserve that much,” Frankely says. In high school, he was confident and quick to raise his hand. At UVA, surrounded by high-achieving peers, he shrank back. “I became more timid and more scared.”
One night, overwhelmed, he called his mom and told her, “I don’t think college is for me. Maybe I should just come home.”
Naming His Doubt and Reframing His Identity
Looking back, Frankely doesn’t describe that semester as failure. He describes it as an awakening.
“In the middle of my first year, I realized that imposter syndrome was always going to be a problem for me,” he says. “But I could just learn how to navigate through it.”
Instead of waiting for doubt to disappear, he began to recognize it when it surfaced. In a small-group writing class, he shared his story, hesitant to reveal it fully. A classmate from a very different background responded that he felt the same way. “That’s when I realized we’re all here for a reason,” Frankely says.
As an FGLI college student, he initially felt pressure to represent his entire community. Now, he reframes it. “Being first-generation is a privilege rather than a pressure,” he explains. When doubt creeps in that he may be the only Hispanic student in the room and should stay quiet, he counters it with a confidence-building perspective. “I’m the first one in my family to ever have this experience.”
His self-assurance has grown from first to second year, though he’s realistic about it. “I wouldn’t say that I have 100% confidence,” he admits, noting that the difference is not that the voice is gone, but that he no longer lets it dictate his life for him.
Finding Belonging at McIntire: Mentorship, Service, and Purpose in Action
Community has been one of Frankely’s most powerful tools.
Having grown up in Bristow, VA, he was raised in a family where giving back was nonnegotiable. He remembers his mother selling homemade Peruvian chicken to make ends meet, turning a small company into a support system for those around them. “Business isn’t just exchanging a product or service,” he says. “It’s a community.” That understanding shaped his decision to pursue business at the Comm School.
Through the McIntire First-Generation Scholarship Program, he found guidance and a network he didn’t think he had access to. “I knew going into McIntire, I didn’t have the networks that other people had,” he says. “But they want to be that network for me.” Mentors such as Sarrah Abdulali (McIntire ’24), Manish Dahal (McIntire ’24), and Saahas Gowda (McIntire ’26) reviewed his resume line by line and connected him with professionals in consulting. He was overwhelmed by their concern and attention: “Wow, these people really do care about me and want me to succeed.”
Rejection played its part, too. After applying to roughly 20 on-Grounds jobs and securing no offers, he landed a role with the McIntire Student Success office as a Student Engagement and Community Intern, leading the Student Engagement and Community Committee. “I think that rejection is redirection,” he says. Working 10 hours a week to create programming for McIntire students and facilitate community building among faculty, staff, and students, he feels the results of his efforts. “It really does make me feel like I’m having a meaningful impact.”
In the future, Frankely hopes to work at the intersection of government and business, exploring how both can be used “for societal good.” His coursework has strengthened his belief that businesses share responsibility in addressing public challenges.
Resilience, for him, is personal. In high school, he took a very long route from being sidelined while competing in track to becoming an All-American hurdler who became a key part of his team. “I used hurdling as a metaphor,” he says. Today, he’s training for a marathon. “Distance is definitely a mental game. You just have to keep on going.”
Imposter syndrome, he knows, may never fully disappear. But now he has tools: naming it, reframing his first-gen identity, seeking mentorship, building community, anchoring himself to purpose.
Belonging, he has learned, isn’t about eliminating doubt. It’s about carrying it differently—and moving forward anyway.
