Identity.....

Being raised, as an African American male in Brooklyn, NY is something you can only experience to understand. Parents go to sleep at night hoping to not get a phone call at 1am saying their child is in jail, or worse, dead. My parents, on the other hand, weren’t entertaining the idea of allowing me out of their eyesight. My daily activities consisted of school, afterschool, home, and church on Sundays; furthermore, any extra curricular activities I participated in, they had to approve. My parents made sure they knew what I was doing 24/7, and this continued until I graduated from high school. My first year of college, I tried my best to make up for everything I missed out on the past few years.

Before I graduated, I attended two parties in my high school career, and one was my senior prom. Considering myself to be sheltered was an understatement. Seventeen years old and on my own from home was an experience I could have never imagined. I made some of the most incredible friends I still have to this day, and I have learned how to care and watch out for myself – a task my parents have tried to instill in me, but it was something I had to learn to do on my own. In the four years I’ve spent in college, I’ve done everything expected of a college student and then some. I traveled for my first time, got my first job, my first car, as well as learned some highly important life lessons regarding professional as well as personal relationships. My experience at SUNY New Paltz has opened my eyes and allowed me to notice the growth that I have gone through in the past years.

To try and pick one event from my freshman year in college that changed me above all would be impossible; but I would say, the entire year served as a stepping-stone into the life that I live now.