How I Ended Up at NYU

    A few months ago, I read Kevin DeYoung’s book Just Do Something, which discusses God’s will as it has been revealed to us through scripture. Several times DeYoung alludes to anecdotes from friends, family, and personal experience, where the individual is able to look back on a period of time and see God’s hand of providence guiding their life. While at the time they could not understand what would ultimately result from all the events and people influencing their future, years later they were able to reflect on the beauty of the Lord’s guidance and provision. Most of these stories came from people much older than me, so I have an elementary understanding of this reality, at best. However, as I prepare for the most significant transition of my young life, I can’t help but look back at the journey the Lord has used to lead me to NYU.

    I wasn’t one of those kids who grew up knowing exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up. For the most part all I cared about was watching sports, playing sports, and hanging out with my friends after school. Sure I read the Lord of the Rings books and loved them, but I didn’t have any plans to become a doctor when I grew up, or a lawyer, or a firefighter, or a writer for that matter. I suppose growing up a huge Seminole fan led to my decision to go to FSU rather than leave town for college, but for the most part college is where I can first start to see signs of the direction my life was taking.

    Reading and writing had always come pretty easily to me in high school, but I didn’t find any particular pleasure in either of them. As for declaring a major, I wanted to be one of those people who woke up excited to go to work every day, so for me that meant sports media. My grades were so bad after my first year that I wouldn’t be able to get into the college of communication at FSU, so that left me with English. Within the English department I was faced with 3 unappealing choices: Literature, Creative Writing, and Editing, Writing and Media (EWM). Lit was never considered. I had 3 people in the creative writing major who told me it would be a better fit for an aspiring sports writer than this new EWM program that wasn’t well established and was taught by unqualified teachers who didn’t know what they were doing, apparently. Well, in spite of their cautionary warning, I picked EWM and jumped in with no idea what lie ahead.

    Meanwhile, I was looking for a new job. My dad knew Tim Parr, GM of the Sonny’s on Timberlane at the time, from back in the day and I got hired in January of 2011. While my time at Sonny’s brought me many great friends who were my age at FSU, one guy in particular helped shape my academic and career path. Joel Bergholtz was a big goofy server that wanted to become a rap journalist when I first met him, and when I found out he was a fellow EWMer I was pumped. Early on, we had elementary conversations about rhetorical theory and other course content, but once we took Dr. Michael Neal’s visual rhetoric course in the summer of 2013 we became much closer and more involved academically. Joel tells the story better than me, but I talked him into switching into the class with me because I was set on taking a class taught by Dr. Neal, whom I met at a Four Oaks college group meeting my first semester at FSU. Dr. Neal is now a close friend of mine and was critical to my pursuit of grad school through counsel, advice, inspiration and several letters of recommendation. Joel and I maintain a close, and yet unique friendship that I hope continues as we head off to grad school and into our careers. We enjoy reading each other’s writing and discussing new rap albums as well as rhetorical theory. Joel is now a first year PhD student at Ball State’s Rhetoric and Composition program. You can already see the cool connections, but bear with me, there are more.

    The College of Arts and Sciences at FSU requires students to take 3 semesters of a foreign language in order to graduate, so I begrudgingly signed up for Italian. In my second semester, I was assigned to Vanessa DiMaggio’s class. In addition to being a total babe and an excellent teacher, I discovered that Vanessa had gotten her masters in journalism from NYU. Ultimately, she decided to switch careers and came to FSU to pursue graduate Italian studies (Vanessa is now getting her PhD at Penn). However, I’ll never forget that moment when I learned this about her because I was hit, for the first time, with a snapshot of what I wanted to do. “If you get a masters in journalism from NYU, you can pretty much write wherever you want,” she said. At the time it only seemed like a pipe dream because I was a below average student, but regardless, the seed was planted. Vanessa was also extremely helpful in giving me all kinds of great advice through the application process and proofreading my personal statement.

    Speaking of being an underwhelming student, my lack of work ethic actually landed me in a classroom with a teacher who would end up changing my life. In the spring semester of 2013, I enrolled in Dr. Graban’s Rhetorical Theory and Practice. On the first day we reviewed the syllabus and it was clear that I was going to be overwhelmed by the course demands. It was out of fear and laziness that I switched into Dr. Rhea Lathan’s Advanced Writing and Editing class. That same laziness left me with a ‘D’ after ten weeks and found me in Dr. Lathan’s office apologizing and asking if there was anything I could do to bring my grade up. She was gracious and gave me 24 hours to submit a very difficult and lengthy essay response to one of our scholarly readings. I went home, pumped out a quality response and ended up finishing out the course strong. This led me to take Rhetorical Theory and Practice with Dr. Lathan the following fall semester. Just as I had done with the extra credit assignment, I stayed up late one night writing an essay on African American Rhetoric that was probably the most influential piece of writing I’ve completed to date. Dr. Lathan was blown away by the essay and reached out to me personally to tell me I was gifted and capable of success on the graduate level. That email she sent and our subsequent meetings changed everything for me. Of course I was inspired, but more than anything Dr. Lathan believed in me when I didn’t even believe in myself. God used her to put wind in my sails, which, up to that point, had been part a ship that wasn’t going much of anywhere at all. Dr. Lathan, too, is now a dear friend of mine and I will forever be grateful for her influence on my life. She is more responsible for my graduate pursuit than any other person in my life.

    Jamey Givens went to middle and high school with my oldest brother Aaron about 15 years ago. I linked up with him my freshman year while he was a graduate assistant for the FSU women’s basketball team. Prior to that he had worked with Ira Schoffel covering FSU athletics. It was through Jamey that I was able to meet Ira and work under him at the Tallahassee Democrat, both completing the necessary internship requirement of my EWM curriculum and providing me with invaluable journalistic experiences like my first interviews and published writing. Ira was an excellent writer for me to work under. He was patient with me and gave me lots of good advice and insight into the world of journalism, about which I was pretty naïve. Additionally, Ira has written me a letter of recommendation and encouraged me in my pursuit of becoming a sports journalist.

    During my junior year at FSU (December 2012), I took a trip to New York for a few days with my roommates. We went to see the Killers at MSG (sadly the concert was cancelled), but while there I was able to visit NYU’s campus, meet with an advisor, and walk around the journalism department, despite school having ended for the semester. That visual experience helped give sight to a future I hoped would one day become a reality.

    Heading into my senior year, my friend Daniel mentioned to me that he had recently felt a desire to read classic literature, like Moby Dick, for the sake of becoming a learned scholar, something we both desired. Inspired by his comments, I decided to take an American literature class that fall. My professor, Dr. Dennis Moore, was difficult to keep up with early on, but my academic advisor had told me he was a great teacher so I decided to stick it out. Long story short, Dr. Moore won me over and inspired me with his love of classic literature. I’m now smitten with it and truly believe it has changed my writing and my life as I have a newfound appreciation for all different genres of writing and communication in general. These types of desires and passions lied dormant in me for so long, it is cool to look back at the people and events that fueled and realized them over the years. Dr. Moore and I have maintained a close correspondence and friendship since my graduation and he too wrote a letter of recommendation on my behalf.

    Once I graduated from FSU, I decided I would take the year off and move back home to focus on my grad school applications and save up some money. It was a difficult transition for me in many ways, but it was just what I needed in even more ways. This may sound a bit trivial, but as an extrovert, being around and interacting with other people energizes me. Getting off work full of energy and going home to a house of sleeping family members was very difficult to get used to, but I realize now it helped prepare me for my life in New York. I wont have roommates waiting on me when I get home every night like I did in undergrad. More importantly, however, I established the discipline of reading my Bible on a daily basis since I moved home. That eventually led to making a conscious effort to share my faith with the people in my life who needed to hear it. Overall, God has drawn me closer to him in the past 12 months and I feel so much more confident about moving to New York by myself than I would have this time a year ago. I have seen more clearly than ever before just how much Jesus loves me and that has been a greater inspiration to me than any person, class, circumstance, or book could ever be. I want to tell everyone I meet about him and that wasn’t the case a year ago. He knew I needed that and was faithful to bless me with it during my year back at home.

    I’ve told several people recently that I didn’t deserve to get into NYU, and I truly believe that. My friend Evan has spent the last 5 years putting in countless hours to get the grades and test scores to become a Doctor one day. He deserves to get into med school. I barely deserved to get my bachelors degree from FSU. Yes, I put in some hard work and have been gifted with an ability to read, write and comprehend things at a high level, but my acceptance into NYU was a gracious gift from God. I don’t understand why he blessed me in such an amazing way, but I want to make the most of the opportunity and constantly sing his praise along the way. But there was a time after I got accepted when I wasn’t sure the financial debt was going to be worth the degree. Seeking spiritual, and biblical counsel on the matter I skyped a mentor of mine, Steve Keating, and asked his opinion on several things. He encouraged me, but also said he would reach out to a pastor he knew in New York to see if he knew anyone that had a place I could live. Pastor Ed Moore called me one day and told me he would send out an email to his congregation letting them know my situation. About three weeks later a woman named Roberta called me to say she had a room I could rent for a very reasonable/discounted rate. I was elated to say yes and it was at that moment that I knew God smiled upon my decision to go to NYU.

    I could write far more than 2,000 words detailing the blessings and gifts God has graciously poured out on me in my life, but there is none greater than the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don’t know who will read this blog, but I know that sadly some of those who do may be surprised to hear these things from me. Even more sadly you may not have a personal relationship with him. To you I would appeal and even beg that you seek him. He died for my sins, was raised again from the dead three days later and in conquering death purchased my soul so that I can spend eternity with him in the perfect union of heaven. He deeply loves you and desires you give your life to him so that he can satisfy your soul. Read the Bible, pray to him, go to church or maybe ask a Christian you know, like me, about him. God could’ve used lots of different ways to lead me down a completely different path in life, but this is the path he chose for me and I’ve walked though it by his grace. I hope you enjoyed this very long story, I imagine there is much more to come!

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” –Proverbs 3:5-6 (ESV)