Brief Overview Of My Story
My name is Jaylin Durham and I am a junior, English
major from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I grew up in the inner city of Milwaukee which
is approximately 45 minutes north of Chicago, Illinois. Despite most of the
negativity that usually surrounds black kids in the inner city; I was blessed
with the ability to refrain from any activity that would possibly land me in a
bad situation. Instead of selling drugs and dropping out of school like most of
the people in my neighborhood, I chose to play sports and engage in after
school activities as an escape route from my surroundings. At an early age, my family
recognized the importance of establishing good morals and good Christian values
as a young man in society. Moreover, I began to develop a sense of who I was as
a Christian at a relatively young age and that was heavily due to the
encouragement of my family. My mother has always been my biggest supporter and was
the one who would give me advice about life, school, and relationships. In elementary
school, I met my four best friends who are still my best friends today and
although the four of us attend different schools we make it a habit of
contacting each other on a regular basis. Something that is very interesting
about me is that I’ve never been an outgoing person but I’ve always had a lot
of friends and a countless number of people who look up to me. My father used
to always say that it was because I was letting my light shine through my
actions, so by doing that, people were automatically drawn to me. Although my
mother and my father played an instrumental piece in developing me into a man,
it was my grandfather who I looked up to the most while I was growing up. I
like to think of my grandfather as the ultimate family man as he took care of a
family of 10 which includes me, my cousins, brothers and sisters, and my niece
and nephew. He’s worked at the same job, recycling metal, for 35 years and I’ve
been able to establish a good work ethic and a good sense of loyalty in my life
through his actions. Transitioning into school, I was always a scholar and I
always received good grades in high school which is the reason why I was
accepted into Morehouse College on a full tuition scholarship. I’ve faced a lot
of challenges in high school, the biggest one being that I attended four
different high schools in two different states. This was not due to bad
behavior, or poor academics, but rather the unfortunate demographics that my
family had to face which has ultimately made me into a better man today. The
biggest form of adversity that I had to face was during my senior year when my
uncle was murdered while being robbed. My uncle was one of my biggest
inspirations, and also my mentor, so when he was killed it forced me to learn
to live through adversity. Although Morehouse was not at the top of the list of
schools that I wanted to attend, I could not be happier to be at a school that
is the international headquarters of black male achievement. Currently, I am
pursing a degree in English as mentioned before, and I plan on attending law
school to become a sports and real estate attorney.
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One of the seven natural wonders of the world. This is a self taken picture from my trip to the Grand Canyon some time ago.