The phrase "at first students" is not correct and usable in written English as it lacks clarity and context.
It could be used in a context where you are discussing students' initial experiences or perceptions, but it needs additional information to be meaningful.
Example: "At first, students were hesitant to participate in the new program, but they soon became more engaged."
Alternatives: "initially, students" or "in the beginning, students".
At first, students primarily established goals and made plans; then, they advanced new ideas and detected errors or checked feasibility.
The dance class has few materials: At first, students would wear their own clothes and dance barefoot, according to Extra Globo.
At first, Students for a Democratic Society and many Quaker draft counselors opposed promoting the Canadian alternative, and Canada's largest counseling group, the Anti-Draft Programme of the Student Union for Peace Action SUPAA) – whose board consisted largely of Quakers and radicals – was sympathetic to such calls for prudence.
At first, students found it hard to integrate their clinical thinking and communication with the patient into a technically proficient interview "… give me some time … I will get to the questions that are essential for that complaint but not in that one moment of speaking" (PC FG3).
WASHINGTON ― At first, student journalists who exposed their new principal's bogus credentials were worried their story wouldn't have an impact, as the school administration stood by its new hire.
"I got there at 1.10pm, at 1.30pm the first students ran up to the front of Millbank.
Recommended by Alison Hramiak who trains Teach First students at Sheffield Hallam University.
First, students at Skip Barber pair off.
The Doctor of Nursing Science DNSS) Program at Indiana University School of Nursing matriculated the first students in 1978.
At first, the students clustered on one side and the alumni on the other, but gradually they began to mix.
At first the students just had fun learning dances like the rumba, tango and fox trot, and discovering that girls, or boys, were people, too, she said.
