Lavontaye Thigpen '20 Recruiting Profile

Some students have a background identity interest or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you then please share your story.

My background is so unforgettable i have overcame a lot of obstacles and had to deal with a lot of pain during my journey. Where i come from they say you will be dead or in jail by the age of 16. I have not been to jail or looked into the eyes of death and i am 16 years of ages. I had to overcome the stereotype that was set for my community and i did. But my journey don’t stop now i want to the young man who beat the odds and became someone out of a community where there was only two options jail or death and i took my own road to success.

The first obstacle that i had to face i was in 5th grade i had came home from school watching my mother cry. I asked what was wrong but she wouldn't tell me, and i asked again she told me slowly that my cousin was shot and i replied with tears rolling down my face will he be alright and my mother replied baby he ain't coming back. This was the hardest of them all to see someone who i looked up to and someone who i loved dearly dead. My cousin was like a brother to me and all my siblings. Every since my cousin died when i came from school i felt like a part of me was missing.

As i was getting over the devastating death of my cousin a few years later in the summer time my grandmother had gotten sick. I thought nothing of it i had my grandmother for my whole life and i just knew my grandmother would get better because my grandmother was the strongest lady i ever knew in my entire life. Then i went out of town to visit my cousins in my father's side and a week later i received a call saying your grandmother is no longer here with us, this made me want to give up on everything and everybody. This even made me want to drop out of school this made me feel like i lost everything this felt like i was living but i was living with no purpose. This hurt me to the core the pain i felt i wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy.

The death of my grandmother was still hurting me and it felt like i couldn't get a break because months later my brother had gotten incarcerated and my little god sister was shot in the back of her head while sitting in her mother car. This killed me because now i felt that i had no one my mother was there but my family was just fading away slowly now i thought of just ending my own life. I still think about my WHY as in why am i still on this earth asking myself do i even still have a purpose to be here. My mother told me everything happens for a reason and i responded but why our loved ones and she told me to never ask the man above why. Every since that day my mother gave me something to think about.

These events made me the person i am now and made me stronger. Even though i wanted to drop out of school i didn't because my pride wouldn’t let me. I also knew that my loved ones was looking from above and expecting me to do the right thing. I did my best in everything i did and i did it for my loved ones to show them that one of us made it out. Therefore my life has been rough but i made the best out of and and want to be the best i can be.