As an adolescence, we usually dream about the direction we would like our life to go within our career paths. What was your dream during this time?

• “My dream… what I projected to do and to be was also from my parents being immigrant-Caribbean. The idea was that there are 4 things you can be, as a young man, a doctor, lawyer, engineer or the fact I was growing up in the church, you can become a priest or some kind of minister. So, those things drove my Kodak lens through high school and then college, I was going to be a doctor. But I was driven totally not by self-interest, not that I knew anything, that I wanted to be a surgeon. I just know. My parents had expectations and it was written for me.”

Can you talk to me about specific instances that influenced you to diverge from the route that you were on? How did these instances lead you to your current situation?

• “I started to question what did it mean to be a doctor. Was that really the choice for me? When I was a freshman in undergrad I was taking the pre-med lower classes but they were not necessarily intriguing. I found classes, such as psychology, sociology, and I started thinking about the human element and even economy 101 was intriguing to me much more than the sciences. So, then I started to have questions…how did this …in my life and so forth.”

Do you believe in happenstance or fate? Or both? Or do you believe in another term?

• “I don’t believe I’m big into happenstance. Fate is one of those I’m still dealing with. I really believe that I have ancestors, I have spirits who are with me, who supports me and looks after me, my elders..that I call on them. I talk to them in a way that, ‘here is what I’m doing, here’s the steps I’m taking based on , life experiences, based on my surroundings, based on who I care about, who care about, this is what I’m gonna go and I put it out there in the energy  for you to support me, to guide me and to create a path for it’. Now it doesn’t mean its going happen just as the way I planned it. But I’m working towards a second goal, that everything is in me, the energy around me, people that support me and love me on the way will help me get to where I’m supposed to go.”

How has your perspective of college shaped from childhood into your adolescence? Or did you have a perspective?

• “I didn’t have a perspective as adolescence it was just something that was expected. After I graduate high school I am going to college. My perspective now, I think a lot of people are not appropriately prepared for college. You have people who say I’m going to college then you have people who say well I’m not going to college because people never told me about college. I don’t think we do think we do a good job of actively communicating and preparing people for college. I as well also view college as this great experiment. I call it a great human experiment. You travel to college and they throw you in a room with a roommate and watch you live. Through conflict, through the unknown, through shared values and cultures. Then you want to build on other people with many different values and different kind of way of looking at life and they are basically, they are professors, they are watching you go through that experiment.”

How would you define college?

• “It’s just one step process of the process of this evolution. From adolescent years to adulthood. I think its part of that continuum, that some of us have to go through, for some us to influence and impact us in an amazing way, for some of us it was just a place that we were, for some of us it was not so pleasant. But it’s part of this continuum that we go through. What I refused to buy into though is the concept that it is the only way to be successful. I don’t think it is the only way to be successful. I don’t think it should define you.”

During your post-graduation phase of life, are there any lessons you learned and would like to share?

• “Don’t change who you are because of your circumstance. Value people who are important to you. Sometimes we are busy so-called chasing this dream or who we think we should be, we stop caring about people in our lives who we should hold dear.”