The purpose of this research was to discover what specific attitudes and behaviors first year students believed were necessary to transition to college by employing a qualitative lens. We chose to explore how students describe building their identities as college students, responding to the cultural shifts between high school and college, and interacting with the power structures in five Long Island institutions of higher education. Specifically, we compared 55 students along two dimensions-first-generation students of color at public and community colleges (n=22 students), and White private college students who are non-first-generation (n=33 students).