Alyssa Hardman’s heart stopped when she saw the Seattle University envelope addressed to her. For a minute, she just stood there looking at the school’s logo in the left-hand corner. Hardman had applied to three other schools but Seattle University was her top choice.

Slowly she opened the letter and took a deep breath as she began to read. “When I saw that I was accepted, I literally couldn’t breathe,” she says.

For most Grant High School seniors, going to college isn’t a dream; it’s something they’ve been planning since the beginning of high school. But for the 17-year-old Hardman, she will be the first in her family to attend a four-year college.

Hardman is the middle child of seven and has lived in Portland all her life. From their first child, the Hardmans decided they wanted to influence their children instead of letting someone else shape them. “We homeschooled them because we wanted as much time with them as possible. We wanted them to be with us eight hours a day,” her father, Greg Hardman, explains.

Until Hardman’s sophomore year of high school, her mother Donna taught her.  “But I rarely did schoolwork,” Alyssa Hardman admits. Often times, she would just sit around reading or doing art instead of doing her schoolwork. “My mom is really into art,” Hardman says. “Art was sort of like my school.” With three other children for her mom to teach, Hardman’s education became an afterthought. For Hardman’s four older siblings, school was the same way. Hardman’s second oldest sister, Bethaney, was also homeschooled until high school.

While Bethaney Hardman considered attending a major university, she chose to attend a trade school instead. Today, she works as a hairstylist, a job she says she loves. But  she has wondered where she would be had she gone to college. In middle school, Alyssa Hardman thought about going to public school. “I just really wanted that high school experience,” she says. Her parents were skeptical. “We were nervous sending her to public school, but Alyssa’s pretty mature. We thought that she could handle it,” Greg Hardman says.

Both her parents instilled strong moral values in their children and they didn’t want others to change them. Her mom took it especially hard because of all the time she spent teaching her, but eventually everyone felt comfortable and excited about the choice.

Hardman’s outlook on education changed when she came to Grant. “I just really wanted a plan. To me, college is a part of that plan,” she says.

But with the laid-back work ethic she had created while being homeschooled, Hardman fell into an academic slump. She found it difficult to push herself through hard assignments if she didn’t think they would apply to her future.

She was far behind her peers academically because she didn’t have many credits required to graduate from her time being homeschooled. “I had to take a lot of extra steps to even be able to think about college,” she says.

She worked with counselor Liz Mahlum to find a way for her to graduate. Mahlum says she hasn’t seen a student quite like Hardman because of the perseverance she put into her schoolwork. “Alyssa was very dedicated to her work and pushed herself very hard,” Mahlum says.

Hardman ended up having to take classes in summer school and spent more than 300 hours volunteering. “I mainly worked at the Children’s Healing Art Program,” she says.

Her mom’s love of the arts made the program the natural place to volunteer. Hardman would often go down to the program’s headquarters and organize art projects. While it took a lot of time, she enjoyed getting to help the kids there.

Her experience inspired Hardman to want to be a psychiatrist, an occupation she had been pondering for a while. “I’ve seen my siblings and other people that just go through emotional hardships and I want to be able to help others,” she explains.

Bethaney Hardman says her sister’s compassion for others is evident. “She’s very attentive, sweet and wants to help people,” she says.

Alyssa Hardman knew she would have to go to college to become a licensed professional. “College would give me opportunities that I wouldn’t have without it,” she says. She had seen her older siblings unhappy with the limited options they had.

Another motivation to attend college was that she could explore something the rest of her family had never dared to try. “Part of me just thought: ‘Wow, it would be really cool to be the first one in my family to go to college.’”

She started the process of looking for colleges by herself. Her parents were skeptical but curious. Hardman says her mother didn’t think school was important because the job of a woman is to be a wife and a mother. Her traditionalist approach was quite the opposite of Hardman’s.

“But we were never surprised she wanted to go to college,” says Greg Hardman. “She’s always been a big learner and she talked about college since the beginning of high school.”

Hardman kept her parents updated on where she was in the process. “We went to the fairs with her, talked with people, and figured out financial aid,” her dad says.

Hardman’s parents thought that George Fox was the best fit because as a Christian school it mirrored the family’s values. But she was set on Seattle University.

“We were so excited. We still are excited,” says a beaming Greg Hardman.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only 43 percent of first generation college students graduate with a degree. But Hardman is determined to be successful. She doesn’t think what her parents did should affect her academic performance. She has already made it this far, and she thinks that she can go even further. ♦