College environments typically define and expect soft independent skills that are emotionally-based, skills that include expressing your own opinions and asserting your needs.  These are taught early and become second-nature to students whose cultural upbringing aligns with school culture.  Students from low-income and/or relationally based cultures often grow up with very different conceptions and values of independence.  In these environments, interdependence is given high value and independence sometimes requires making do with what you have and asking for more. These students may not understand that asking for help is viewed as an independent skill and communicates empowerment.  It is a misconception to label these students as lacking independent skills. In fact, the resiliency of many of these students is quite admirable viewed in another context. A more culturally responsive approach is to help students identify their own independent and interdependent skills yet also teach them those expected in a college environment.  With this information, students can begin to recognize when they need to code-shift and have the skills to do so.

"It is very hard to say I need help...people call it shy, but it is more of a humility issue.  For non-Natives it is easy for them to say 'I don't have these skills'.  Suzzak describes this as talking to figure out what you are thinking and compares this with the Indigenous tendency to think before talking.  "In the traditional way, traditional way, you think it through first, before you come for help you are expected to fully exhaust your own attempts to take care of things."

Referencing research by Kusserow on early childhood, Covarrubias (2005) applies the concepts of “soft independence, an emotion-focused sense of independence wherein children were nudged to explore their feelings and to express their preferences” and “hard independence, survival-focused sense of self-reliance” to first generation college students (p. 384). Covarrubias (2005) explains a value imparity regarding independence; survival-based independent skills, such as self-reliance and toughness, is often ignored by universities that demonstrate a preference for independent skills that are emotional-based such as reflection and verbal expressions of your own opinion or preferences.

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​Jack (2016) contributes a reluctance to ask for help as a product of low-income students in regular public schools not having the opportunity to learn the hidden rules and expectations of more affluent schools and universities. It is not that students lack independent skills, they are intimidated by the environment, they view it as a potential display of weakness and do not understand the hidden rule that it would demonstrate empowerment and independence (Jack, 2016).