A shy, timid girl held her head down low as she walked across the pavement to get on the school bus. She had just got accepted into an early college program that her parents had demanded she attend; however, she was the least bit enthused by their plans. She anticipated that she had missed her bus, so she walked up to a group of bus drivers standing outside the parking lot of the transfer school bus lot that she had to go to before getting on the bus that traveled to her new school. She asked which bus was bus 191. She heard a familiar voice say, “You go to early college.”  The girl looked up from jacket hood and recognized the voice was coming from her sixth grade bus driver. The girl replied, “Yes ma’am I do.” Her sixth grade bus driver replied, “I can’t believe they let you into that school. That school is no place for someone like you. You will never make it to college.” Despite the shame and embarrassment the girl felt, she proceeded to get information about her bus, and walked back to the place she stood on the pavement. Her throat burned with anxiety trying to hold back tears as she heard laughter coming from the crowd of bus drivers she left. What was supposed to be the best first day of her high school years turned into the worst day she would never forget.

 

My name is Teanna Anthony, a graduating senior in Biological Science from Winston Salem State University. I was this shy, timid girl that hung her head low from the thought of being nothing more than the stereotypical African American I had been labeled. From that moment on the pavement, I made the declaration to live by the scripture “The LORD will make you  the head and not the Tail. You will be above and not beneath”( Deuteronomy 28:13). Coming from a family where there were more high school drop outs than college degrees, my desire for education grew deeper than the very melanin pigment in my skin. To me, obtaining a college degree means more than a piece of paper of congratulations. To me, my college degree is a statement that speaks louder than all of those who told me I would never cross the graduation stage.

 

With the little college background I had obtained prior to coming to WSSU, I thought I was prepared and equipped to handle college and the college lifestyle;however, my first semester was a huge wakeup call. In high school, I was the only African American to graduate at the top of my class and I thought college would be the same, but I was wrong. There were so many obstacles that I endured that caused me to loose focus causing my grades to slip and it felt like I wasn't going to be able to bounce back from the damage. Although the damage was minor to some, it was tremendous to me. After the fall semester of my first year, I knew it was time to get it together and do what I had came to do. It was hard, but I managed to prepare the damage to my grades and be that same student I was in high school, but better.

 

Upon graduation, I was reminiscing of the things I had accomplished throughout college, and I felt empty handed. I looked around and seen all of the activities, groups, and associations my peers had been apart of and I began to compare my intelligence and capabilities with them, which did me no justice. I begin to feel as if I had not made a mark on my campus like some other students and I was out of time. I begin to doubt my own intelligence and abilities until my dad said something to me that stuck. He said you cannot measure your success against the success of others, because you will never think you are good enough." From that day, I realized that I was good enough and I had accomplished what dos people never see in a lifetime.Although the journey was long and hard that consisted of many stops and sleepless nights where I wanted to give up, the journey is far from over, it’s just the beginning.