When I graduated from high school in 2023, during my junior and senior years, I didn’t want to go to college.
I thought I’d just go to trade school; it’s simple, cheap and guaranteed.
Only one thing changed my mind: a historically Black college tour I went on when I was in those formative years of school.
They took us across the country to a different college. Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University and Alabama State University. By talking to those college students, I learned why going to college was important.
I didn’t attend those schools, obviously, but it got me thinking. The experience is really once in a lifetime, and maybe if I want to be a doctor or a lawyer, I can.
Seeing people who looked like me be successful changed my life.
Now I stand here two years later, so grateful that I took that opportunity.
College is important because it teaches you so many things outside the classroom. Believe it or not, experience is the best teacher, and I’ve learned far more outside the classroom than in it.
What I mean by this is my peers. You’re put in a dorm room with strangers and have to figure out how to get along with them. You meet people from all kinds of backgrounds with different mindsets and approaches to life.
They expose you to everything. The good and the bad and during that time, being in those crazy situations, you learn to find who you are.
College is a place where you are guaranteed to fail at a test, an assignment or even in a relationship. You will make many mistakes, but that’s when you learn.
College taught me I was capable of more than I imagined and how to build something from scratch and make it into something beautiful.
I will never be the same person I was when I first walked into Ferris State University.
When you’re young and you just turned 18, you think you know everything, just to find out you know nothing, and that this isn’t even the person you will ultimately be. College taught me how to conduct myself in a business manner, how to behave when you’re at a job, how to get what you want out of a job, how to spend money and how to negotiate salaries.
It sets you up for life. The resources and people you have access to put you in a direct position to win. They have partnerships with companies and colleagues, and they care about your future.
I’m simply saying college gives you not just a career but the education and credibility to have multiple careers.
I am now a sophomore graduating with my associate’s degree in Integrative Studies this May. I will be continuing to a bachelor’s in Journalism and Communications at Arizona State University.
None of this would be possible if I hadn’t taken that step in going to college and believing in myself.
I walked into college not knowing who I was and not loving who I was. I walked out being the person I always wanted to be.
Every failed exam, every late-night study session, and every time a friend left me disappointed, I learned. That’s the beauty of it. No matter what happened, I learned, even when I didn’t want to.
Your years after high school count, and I wish someone had told me this sooner. Your 20s determine the rest of your life and making poor decisions will lead you to live a poor quality of life.
I don’t want to look back on my life and regret anything, so I always live for me and live for the moment.
The only thing that matters is my future, not my past.
I appreciate everyone at Ferris who has helped me along the way: my professors and classmates. Thank you, Ferris State, for showing me what life is really about. I’m on to my next adventure soon.