Connecting the Points

College is often presented as a clean path. Choose a major, collect the right experiences, stay consistent, and everything is supposed to line up. What I have found is that the order matters less than where those experiences eventually start to connect.

Before college, I participated in the CEED Student Transition Engineering Program, where I met my closest peers. I enjoyed it enough that I later returned as a program assistant and residential advisor. Early on, I spent a lot of time exploring student organizations and applying to opportunities that interested me. That habit eventually led to leading the Innovate Living Learning program, which opened the door to working with other student leaders on the Apex Center Student Advisory Board. Joining Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. provided yet another platform to take on more.

Those earlier experiences now sit alongside the work I do today. Some days I am working with data for the FSL office, trying to understand systems that affect real students. Other days I am with my fraternity brothers, helping move the work forward and sitting in conversations about what our community needs. CS classes and research stay at the center, while side projects still give me space to build and test ideas.

These different parts of my life never arrived in a clean sequence. I stepped into them one by one, often without knowing exactly how they would fit. What they required was simple: stay present and take on the next responsibility. Over time, that choice stopped feeling like extra work and started feeling normal.

The work in one space started feeding the work in another. Conversations with my fraternity brothers connected to the responsibility I was already carrying. Research taught me to look more closely at problems. Projects taught me how to keep moving when things felt uncertain. None of it seemed connected at first, but each experience gave me something I carried into the next. More importantly, following these different points connected me to people I would not have met otherwise.

I thought I was supposed to figure out the right path and then follow it cleanly. Instead, I learned that some of the most meaningful connections come from being willing to step into something new, even when you cannot yet see how it fits. Some opportunities worked out. Others did not. A few doors closed, but a closed door is not always a loss. Sometimes it is simply a redirection, and that can still become a new direction.

Looking back, the picture that formed was never the linear path I thought I was supposed to follow. It was made of small decisions to take ownership, unexpected turns, and the people who met me in those spaces. That picture feels more like me than the perfect one ever did.

You do not have to wait for the path to look perfect. While you have this limited time in university, step into something bigger than yourself. Explore what you truly believe in and stay with it. Not every experience will fit the way you expect, and not every door will stay open. But keep moving forward. The points you have been plotting may start connecting in ways you never expected.