The Journey - The Early Days

My first mentor, she was white. A young women, recent college grad who volunteered to mentor a kid. One day, kids in my middle school school were called to the cafeteria. I was one of the last kids to be picked by a mentor but I was happy and she was nice. She picked me up from my grandmothers house - that's where I lived at the time. We went to restaurants in areas that I hadn't been to before. She taught me how to calculate the tip and let me shift her stick shift. It was easy, I just needed to shift in order 1, 2, 3, 4, when the light came on. She had a brand new car and I was fascinated. She worked at a large insurance firm and lived in the burbs. I lived in the city. We talked a lot about college. I had never met anyone who went to college before, so I was interested to say the least. I was in 7th grade at the time and no one had really talked to me about college before. But she had a nice car, enough money to take me out and what seemed like a good job so I figured that I better go.

This is how I decided to go to college.