The academic year 2020/2021 was different from others in Czech tertiary educational history. That year and the year after were influenced by pandemic Covid-19. Some Czech universities were lucky and started their semester in person, but some did not have this possibility. That means that newcomers to some universities could not visit the concrete university buildings during their first semester. And their whole semester was held online, but the first semester is crucial for students' academic and social integration. According to Vlk et al. (2017), successful academic and social integration is necessary for future students' achievement at university. The online semester influenced the entire integration process as students did not meet in person, did not see their peers and did not visit university environment-buildings. During that time, many students' dormitories were closed. Therefore many newcomers stayed home and lived with their family members. Tinto (1993) says that family background influenced the process of integration. It is even more noticeable when a student lives at home during her/his studies. According to Tierney (1999), a student should "cut" the old and accept the new to fully integrate into the new system. That means students should live separately to have the possibility to integrate fully and to accept their new social role (university student) with all duties and opportunities, which is also very important during the integration process (Tinto, 1975). This situation was even more challenging for first-generation students. These are students whose family members have no experience with tertiary education (Vengřinová, 2021). First-generation students are more likely to drop out of tertiary education than peers (Ives & Castillo-Montoya, 2020). They could not ask their family members for advice about the university system, enrolling in courses, what credit points mean, and how to calculate them. This unique situation created significant research possibilities to investigate a process of academic and social integration of first-generation university students into the system, which should not be online but was. Because there is research about first-generation university students (e.g. Holland, 2020; Lytle & Shin, 2020; Mehta et al., 2011), we also can read articles about integration into study period research (such as Dika & D'Amico, 2016; Woosley & Shepler, 2011 etc.). But there is no research according to the current situation (pandemic of Covid-19 and online/distance learning) and students' integration into a university system, which creates a research gap. This concrete research gap wants partly cover this paper. It leads us to the main research question: How did first-generation students perceive their first semester as university students but at home? This main question was split into specific questions: (1) How do first-generation students perceive their role in their family? (2) How did first-generation students communicate their experience of studying to their family members? (3) Which obstacles connected to their environment did first-generation students face? (4) How did they overcome these obstacles?

According to the research question, it was used a qualitative approach. The best in-depth knowledge was possible to get from semi-structured interviews (Wengraf, 2001). Therefore I prepared an interview scheme and started to look for potential interviewees right after the first semester. The snowball principle, finding more interviewees, was unsuccessful in this case as students did not know each other. But they created Facebook groups to get in touch. Therefore I made a form, one of the interviewees wrote the link of the form to the peers' Facebook group, and their peers could voluntary sign to participate in this research. But there were some conditions which interviewees had to fulfil (1) be first-generation students (their parents nor siblings have had no experience in tertiary education); (2) they were enrolled in their first studies at university; (3) they spent their first semester at home surrounded by family; (4) their field of study is teacher training. In the end, 25 first-generation students fulfilled the conditions, and I interviewed them. After that, all interviews were transcripted and open coded. It was possible to indicate categories and key topics based on the coding. They are communication, duties, misunderstandings, support, peers and environment. The whole coding process was done in Atlas.ti software. It was possible to visualise categories and look for their connections based on that.

As interviewed students had to spend their first semester home, they say that it was challenging to accept that they became university students. They considered themselves more likely as high school students because they expected university students to go to lectures, live in another city than their family, have independent lives etc. In reality, they were still home and had to communicate with their family members daily. This life together created a lot of misunderstandings. Many interviewees said that their parents or siblings did not understand why they sat and worked on computers all day long. Their parents expected to help with housework or tutor younger siblings (they also had online schooling). On the other hand, students expected to have privacy and time to study and "have their own life" to have the possibility to fully understand and integrate into new system. Parents also frequently asked their child (an interviewee) about school, homework and tests. Homework or tests are common at high schools, not at universities in the Czech Republic. Students had to explain to their parents how the university works, which was even more challenging as they also did not know that at the beginning of the semester because they have just started the process of integration. And this absence of (both parents' and their own) knowledge made pressure on them. Some of the interviewees said that they argued with their parents. There were also so frustrated from the situation and at one time demotivated, so they considered not continuing to study. On the contrary, their parents even though they did not understand the situation and the university process, supported their child and made him/her feel special (because he/she is a first-generation student). That was one of the reasons why these students continued integrating into the university system.

Dika, S. L., & D’Amico, M. M. (2016). Early experiences and integration in the persistence of first-generation college students in STEM and non-STEM majors. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(3), 368–383. Holland, M. M. (2020). Framing the search: How first-generation students evaluate colleges. The Journal of Higher Education, 91(3), 378–401. Ives, J., & Castillo-Montoya, M. (2020). First-generation college students as academic learners: A systematic review. Review of Educational Research, 90(2), 139–178. Lytle, A., & Shin, J. E. (2020). Incremental beliefs, STEM efficacy and STEM interest among first-year undergraduate students. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 29, 272–281. Mehta, S. S., Newbold, J. J., & O’Rourke, M. A. (2011). Why do first-generation students fail? College Student Journal, 45(1), 20–35. Tierney, W. G. (1999). Models of minority college-going and retention: Cultural integrity versus cultural suicide. Journal of Negro Education, 68(1), 80–91. Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research. Review of Educational Research, 45(1), 89–125. Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. The University of Chicago. Vengřinová, T. (2021). Akademická a sociální integrace do studia na vysoké škole u první generace vysokoškoláků: přehledová studie. Studia paedagogica, 26(1), 167-184. Vlk, A., Drbohlav, J., Fliegl, T., Hulík, V., Stiburek, Š., & Švec, V. (2017). Studijní neúspěšnost na vysokých školách. Sociologické nakladatelství. Wengraf, T. (2001). Qualitative research interviewing: Biographic narrative and semi-structured methods. Sage. Woosley, S. A., & Shepler, D. K. (2011). Understanding the early integration experiences of first-generation college students. College Student Journal, 45(4), 700–715.