A PWI didn't prepare for me Corporate America like I thought it would.
I was a bit wide-eyed, trusting, and had a lack of parental guidance. I was taught you that if work hard and you keep your head down, the world would see your worth and in turn reward you. Let me tell you I am a ridiculously hard worker and I have had set-back, after set-back, after set-back, after set-back.
I'm the type of person if I don't know something, I will learn everything in my disposal on the subject. See: makeup, styling, photography, analytics, Microsoft Office, and most recently TikTok. I watch experts, ask for study sessions with peers, reach out to people that know more than I and offer to pay for lunch or an hour. I will make a way in whatever it is I am trying to do. I attended a multitude of blogging workshops over the years before I just started writing here. This isn't a Langston Hughes Poem, I mean life for me ain't been no crystal stair despite the name (Get it, my name is Krystal) but I put into it what I expect to get back.
I chose to attend a PWI or rather it was chosen for me. I was excited to attend one of the best institutions in the world but from day 1 it was an uphill battle. I didn't have a support system at school. Being one of only a few minorities, I felt like we were put in competition instead of there being comradery. Looking back, I wish I would have went to a school where I could have been loved on more before I had to face this cruel world. When I tell you in most of my classes I was 1 of 1 or at most 1 of 2 minorities. I would go most of the day without seeing someone that even closely resembled me. My roommate was a white girl from high school, who the first month of us living together, went to the administration to complain I was "dirty" because I hadn't washed my hair. We had to have a meeting to explain to her that Black hair is different and her assumptions were racist. So even at home, I didn't have a safe place to lay my head without being judged.
Not to mention the divide of the black kids: African kids stuck together, as did the Caribbean kids, and geographically people stuck together as well, those east coast kids didn't want to let anyone into their click. So when my first two friends at the University were guys from my old neighborhood, I thought I had hit the jackpot! Well, that happiness was short lived. They proceeded to make bets about raping me and then one of them sexually assaulted my 2nd day on campus in front of my drunk, passed out roommate while the other covered for him. And then again sophomore year, as I was leaving a party with mutual friends, I was drug down a main hallway and assaulted in a student lounge. Needless to say, I wasn't exactly open after those experiences. This is not to say I couldn't have been assaulted at a HBCU, but I think people might have believed me, rallied behind me even, and maybe I would have not had to face it alone. The one black professor I knew on campus, I went to him to talk about it and he suggested I brought it on myself. He brought up how I dressed and maybe if I wanted to be respected, I wouldn't wear shorts with a body like mine. What's interesting, they are all still on my Facebook page even though I haven't spoken to any of them since graduation. I keep my friends close but, my enemies closer. I digress...
I had a math class where I attended every in-person class session, every study session, every office hour, and even did my homework in a group of 6 together. Yet, somehow they would get A's on everything and I would get F's. The harder I worked, the worse my grade got. When I brought it up to the head of the department, she said chalked it up to me not working hard enough and then accused me of copying the other students work. I said how could I copy if we all have the same answers because we worked together? Sigh! I got an F in a class that was mandatory for my major. That was the hardest working F I ever got! Because of that grade, I couldn't graduate in my major after 3.5 years of study. I had to pay for classes at another University, in a new major just to graduate in 4 years. Why was it so important to graduate in 4 years? Because my parent would cut me off if I took longer. I couldn't catch a break.
This was a lesson in life that would haunt me. It didn't matter what I did, that professor and math chair thought I didn't belong in the math department so, I wasn't going to pass. I could have gone to study sessions on the moon and I wasn't going to get that math degree. It pains me sometimes that I spent 3.5 years working towards something to throw it all away. I did graduate on time with a degree in Psychology. I will say with all the Psychology classes under my belt, I am better for it as I do have a better understanding of people and their actions.
Stay tuned for part 2...
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