I didn’t have a particularly impressive high school record. I was involved in clubs, varsity sports, and held leadership positions, but my grades weren’t exceptional. I didn’t have limitless options.
I applied early decision to Spelman with about a 3.4 GPA, and got in. For a moment, my path seemed set.
My mother, however, had serious reservations about me moving to Atlanta. She had reason. I had spent a good portion of high school in trouble. She had seen me arrested, even in handcuffs more than once (a story for another day), and from her perspective, sending me to a city like Atlanta would be… risky. “How you gon act once you get down there?” she asked.
I knew I wasn’t gonna act right.
My family pushed for other HBCUs like Hampton, FAMU, and Tuskegee. My family is a Hampton family, so no one brought up Howard University. I wanted to go far away for school anyway: Howard was just a 45-minute drive. I didn’t even consider it.
Then another option appeared almost out of nowhere: I didn’t have to go to school in the United States at all. I could go to university in England.
At the time, I was working at McDonald’s during my senior year. I wanted to eventually work at McDonald’s corporate. Studying international business, in another country, suddenly felt logical. It wasn’t some grand, romantic dream, it just… made sense. So that’s what I did.
Another real shift in my thinking actually started behind that McDonald’s counter.
I was the only native English speaker at that location. All of my coworkers were from Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and El Salvador. I was 17, and for the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people whose stories didn’t resemble mine at all. Listening to them talk about their lives back home, why they had come, what they were trying to build, I had this very blunt realization: the world is huge, and I actually don’t know anything about it.
Going to London wasn’t really about the school (which is why I ended up leaving that school). It was about getting out of the United States.
The decision wasn’t perfectly planned, or even very intentional. It was a series of small, imperfect choices made by a teenager who knew she needed a different environment. England offered distance, structure, and a chance to start becoming someone else.
And that was it. We booked a flight to London. That was also my mom’s first time traveling to Europe to take me there. And honey, did I have a time in London.