My Life Before Twenty: Expectations versus Reality

When I was in high school, I wrote an account of my life prior to the age of fifteen and then continued into a prediction for the remaining five years of my life until I reached the age of twenty. Here's a comparison of how accurate it was.

Here's a picture of me (2019), in the red blouse with the gray blazer, with the rest of High Point University's Student Government Association Executive Council.

I soaked up the emotions and enthusiasm of the fans around me as much as I soaked up the mid-July sun. I had never before felt so connected to a community of strangers in my life.

Life Before Fifteen and My Expectations Before Twenty

One of the most impactful events of my childhood was my family's yearly vacation to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We would road trip down the coast and visit my aunt, my cousins, my grandparents, and any other relatives that may have been visiting at the time. The vacation was in March, so it always interfered with my school's academic and statewide standardized testing calendars. However, my parents decided it was worth pulling me and my sister out of school, pending our grades were up, since we rarely visit our family.

The vacation served a double purpose for us. While it was great seeing our extended family, it also served as a way for us to relax and let go of the extenuating circumstances that never eased its grip around my childhood and family life. Going to the Outer Banks was something we could always look forward to as a breath of fresh air from the sometimes suffocating tension of wondering what else could possibly be thrown our way. Despite its double purpose, however, we always made the best of the vacation every time we went.

During my eighth grade year, I withdrew from my "brick and mortar" middle school and took classes through a cyberschool program. The classes were a bit easy for me, which could be because they were online and had to be geared to several different learning styles and academic levels. I finished the nine-month curriculum by the beginning of March after several weeks of procrastination over finishing my Algebra I class. With so much free time on my hands, I began finding other ways to fill my time.

I became a philosopher. After finishing our school work for the day, my sister and I would sit and play Minecraft while talking about different aspects of ourselves, our lives, social problems, and the world. Some philosophical perspectives are positive, and those are the perspectives that I often took on. Others are negative, and those are the perspectives my sister tended to take on. When taking on positive perspectives, I became quite optimistic about life and thought a lot about my future.

I decided I wanted to major in either anthropology or physics. I was fascinated by both the past and the future of human life, and metaphysics continues to intrigue me to this day. My dream universities included the high-ranking University of California, Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania. My aspirations and desire for learning were so high that I could only imagine myself attending the universities that birthed so many scholars. This sentiment rang especially true for anthropologists coming out of UC Berkeley.

I found myself pondering potential career paths, knowing that anthropologists often require a master's degree at a minimum to be employed, and knowing that I was too behind in my math skills to pursue physics. Because I love learning languages, I considered a career path in linguistics or teaching English abroad. However, I didn't think either of these options suited me simply because I thought I wouldn't be a good teacher. Looking back now, that was likely more of a confidence issue than a competence issue. I decided I would keep looking into alternative career paths while continuing to pursue my lifelong passion for learning by taking online classes through Coursera, where I had taken anything from Music Production from Berklee College of Music to Forensic Science, Learning How to Learn, and Chinese for Beginners from other prestigious universities around the globe.

Outside of learning, I found myself getting very involved with the post-hardcore music scene. I attended Vans Warped Tour for three to four summers in a row, basking in the sun, sweat, blood, tears, and sound waves of twelve hours of music and merch. I discovered how passionate I could be in a small yet dedicated crowd of fans who genuinely enjoy being there. I soaked up the emotions and enthusiasm of the fans around me as much as I soaked up the mid-July sun. I had never before felt so connected to a community of strangers in my life.

Life After Fifteen and Until Twenty: Reality

It turns out I did not attend UC Berkeley or the University of Pennsylvania. In fact, I didn't even attend University College Dublin or Marist College or the two universities that ended up being my dream schools, American University and The George Washington University.

While it was a bit disappointing for my aspirations not to enroll at either of my top choice schools nor at the other more "prestigious" universities I was accepted at, I have no regrets about my choice to attend High Point University. Ranked as the number one university in the South, High Point University is where I discovered my niche. It is where I accomplished everything I possibly could have while attending university and seized every opportunity that came my way. It's where I was offered more opportunities to take that I may have been offered elsewhere.

I double-majored in international relations and sociology/anthropology, which was good because I grew to love sociology and anthropology equally as much and had a difficult time choosing between one or the other. I was a member of the first Honors Scholar Program cohort guided under the new interdisciplinary and research-based curriculum. I helped tackle high student transiency rates in Guilford County schools by presenting my research to school and district stakeholders, who later implemented some of my presented solutions throughout the school system. I graduated in three years, studied Russian language and culture abroad in Ukraine as a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholar, attended the North Carolina Summer Policy Institute, and applied for a Critical Language Scholarship to South Korea and a Fulbright Scholarship to Northern Ireland.

I submitted two papers for publication, one of which was my senior thesis on the differences between American and Canadian national identity. I served my community as a brother and the Membership Vice President of Alpha Phi Omega (APO), a national coeducational service fraternity. I served as the Chief of Staff for HPU's Student Government Association (SGA), the Executive Assistant and Vice President for HPU's Model United Nations delegation, and the President and Co-founder of HPU's newly chartered Sociology and Anthropology (SOA) Club.

I served my campus as an intramural referee, an academic tutor for political science and Russian, and a residential assistant in a first-year community. I worked at my university's bookstore since my freshman year and promoted HPU at events on and off-campus. I completed a research training program called Research Rookies, which provided me with the necessary skills to work in qualitative and quantitative research, and subsequently worked as an undergraduate research assistant where I worked on a project investigating the portrayal of immigrants in the media. Most importantly, I fostered incredible, lifelong relationships with my professors.

My final semester at High Point University was cut short due to the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak. I am extremely sad to know that I am unable to complete my terms as Chief of Staff for SGA, Membership Vice President in APO, Vice President of Model UN, and President for the SOA club. I am sad I was unable to say goodbye to many friends, professors, staff, and faculty members who helped shape me into the person I am today. However, I am fortunate enough to say with confidence that HPU, despite its lack of national "prestige," gave me a top-notch education with unbelievable opportunities and I am certain I am leaving HPU a better place than it was when I arrived just three short years ago.