Great initiative. I am First-Gen; attended same high school as @PMoserEcon in the deep countryside; my dad left school at age 14, my mum at age 16; dad worked for German rail; mother housewife; ended up at @UniBonn by accident because grandmother lived there (--> free housing). https://twitter.com/PMoserEcon/status/1291026036579168257

Started studying maths and physics to become a teacher, following dad's advice: "become a teacher; public sector; safe job".
Met Mathias Hoffmann ( @UZH_en) in maths lectures; his passion for Economics made me attend Econ lectures and that's how I ended up studying Economics.

Most important academic in my life was Reinhard Selten @NobelPrize @UniBonn. Amazing person. Humble. Wise. During UG studies wanted to do exchange year abroad, either @UCBerkeley or @ENSAEparis.
Selten: "Swim against the current, go to @ENSAEparis."

I did. Loved @ENSAEparis. Applied for only ONE PhD program (crazy not to apply for more!): @EuropeanUni. They had oral entry exams. I was never in my whole life so nervous. At the time, my English was terrible (it still is, as my kids tell me all the time). Oral exam starts ...

... some questions about micro (2nd welfare theorem etc), some macro, then metrics: "What are the properties of the maximum likelihood estimator?" I was lost, didn't know what this was, as I had not heard the English term, having only studied metrics in German and French.

Professor Louis Phlips (who sadly passed away later that year) translated the question into French and when I heard "maximum de vraisemblance", it clicked and I gave the properties in French, and Louis Phlips translated back to English; with that I passed; got into @EuropeanUni.

At @EuropeanUni, I had great peers and advisors (Andrea Ichino, Mike Artis, Søren Johansen). At many points in life, I was just super lucky to meet wise people. Some examples:

1. At age 16, I had to choose subjects for final three years of high school. Wanted to drop English (crazy!), and continue Biology. Biology teacher said: "Don't do that. You never know whether you need English later in life."

2. Reinhard Selten (see above): "Go to @ENSAEparis. If life wants that way (wenn das Leben so will), you can still go to @UCBerkeley later in life." Selten was right: spent 5 months with David Card at @UCBerkeley as exchange PhD student from @EuropeanUni, in year 2000.

Bottom line: being First-Gen is different. Without many (sometimes random) pieces of advice from amazing people, I would not have ended up doing what I now enjoy so much (except for referee 2 comments).