Although I concede that everyone’s life is unique, those who know me well would agree that my upbringing was a little extraordinary. I belong to an average middle class family, the mother of which was a nurse at the local hospital, the father of which was a...

Dearest Professors, I am writing the following letter to you because I owe you the gift of communicated knowledge.You have been gracious, understanding, ingenious, and inventive in a time of great uncertainty and upheaval. You have done your very best to pivot, adapt,...

During the month of June 2018, I enrolled as a student at Mt. Hood Community College. I was filled with great excitement and ambition of the new opportunity. Yet, I was also overcome with fear and anxiety as I had been a 15-year-old first-generation college student...

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, Delaware County Community College has been the village that turned this man into a graduate.

I would wait until the evening, when it was pleasantly cool and dark enough, to slip unnoticed into the other dorms and make my way to recycling stations on each floor. I’d gather the glass bottles in a big garbage bag pilfered from my own dorm’s kitchen, and when I got all I could carry, I would start toward the grocery store a block off campus, the bag bumping along behind me, clink-clink-clinkety-clink.

In February 2020, the novel coronavirus began making its way into the US, creating one of the most dramatic and widespread emergencies of my lifetime.

So much has happened since I’ve started here at ODU which is why it is important that I share as much of my experience with you for you to understand how my college experience is in no way like the traditional ones you see.