Today I had the experience of speaking with APPLES alternative winter break participants about the experience of being a rural student at UNC. It was amazing to share my perspective, however, it also made me realize so much about how UNC treats rural students once there....

I recognize that UNC traditionally does a poor job at supporting any minority student (especially Black and brown students) but there’s such an intersectionality between rural, low income, BIPOC, first gen identities that UNC does a horrible job at supporting

Like... this school boasts and boasts about rural student enrollment yet throws us out to drown the moment we get here. No dedicated office, no dedicated groups, no dedicated resources, etc. UNC and tokenization is nothing new to me but it still sucks thinking about.