When people ask me about my time at the University of Tampa, I usually tell them it was the best three and a half years of my life.
What I don't always tell them is that I almost never got to experience those years.
If you've followed my Black Generation X stories, you've probably heard me talk about my first semester in college. It was rough. I dealt with overcrowded dorm rooms, roommate issues, culture shock, loneliness, and even found myself hitchhiking home after getting stranded in Orlando. Every new challenge made me question whether I had made the right decision by leaving Arkansas.
By the end of that first semester, I wasn't just homesick.
I was evaluating whether I even belonged there.
Then Spring 1988 arrived.
Sometimes Your Environment Changes Before Your Mind Does
One of the biggest changes wasn't academic.
It was my living situation.
I moved out of the tiny room that had been designed for one student but housed three of us. Instead, I became roommates with my best friend, Frank. Ironically, the room had been built for four students, but only the two of us were living there.
For the first time since arriving on campus, I had something I desperately needed.
Space.
Frank had his own bedroom. I had mine. We even had what amounted to a shared living room.
That may not sound like much, but after spending months feeling like I never had a place to breathe, that room became a sanctuary.
Sometimes success isn't about having more.
Sometimes it's simply about finally having room to think.
Building an Infrastructure
The room wasn't the only thing that changed.
Frank had family living in West Tampa, just minutes from campus.
Almost every weekend, we'd walk over to his aunt and uncle's house. We'd spend the day eating home-cooked meals, talking with his cousins, relaxing, and simply existing outside the pressures of campus life.
Something unexpected happened.
I slowly became part of that family.
At the time, I didn't realize how important that would become. Looking back, I can see that I was building something every young adult needs, especially when they're hundreds of miles from home.
I was building an infrastructure.
Support doesn't always arrive in dramatic ways.
Sometimes it begins with someone asking if you're hungry.
Finding My Community
I also became more comfortable navigating campus.
Frank played in a rock band, so whenever his group performed, I tagged along. Those performances introduced me to people I otherwise might never have met.
Eventually, I participated in the Association of Minority Collegians talent show, performing in an a cappella quartet while Frank handled the music.
Little by little, I stopped feeling like a visitor.
I started feeling like I belonged.
As more Black students gathered in our oversized dorm room, I realized something that had escaped me during my first semester.
There was a culture within the University of Tampa that was waiting for me to discover it.
It wasn't something I forced.
It developed naturally through friendships, shared experiences, and simply giving myself enough time to settle into a new world.
Opportunities I Never Saw Coming
Toward the end of that semester, something happened that completely changed the trajectory of my college experience.
I was selected to become a Resident Assistant.
Think about that for a moment.
I started the academic year living in one of the most uncomfortable housing situations imaginable.
I ended it knowing I'd return in the fall with a room of my own.
Life has a funny way of rewarding persistence after you've stopped looking for immediate relief.
The opportunities that eventually define your life often appear only after you've survived the difficult seasons.
The World Became Bigger
Spring 1988 wasn't finished surprising me.
Frank came home with me and another friend for spring break, marking the first time I had ever brought a college friend back to Arkansas.
Then, after the semester ended, he invited me to spend three weeks with his family in Queens, New York.
Imagine that.
A kid from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, experiencing New York City during the 1980s.
Just months earlier, I had questioned whether I should even stay in college.
Now I was seeing parts of the country I had never imagined visiting.
That's how quickly life can change.
Why I Call It the Best Three and a Half Years
People hear me say that my years at the University of Tampa were the best years of my life.
What they don't always understand is that those years became special because I stayed through the worst part.
If I had left after my first semester, I never would have experienced the friendships.
I never would have discovered my community.
I never would have become an RA.
I never would have traveled to New York.
Most importantly, I never would have discovered that the place where I once questioned whether I belonged would become one of the defining chapters of my life.
Sometimes we judge an entire season by its opening chapter.
But life doesn't work that way.
The beginning may introduce the struggle.
The middle often introduces the people.
The ending reveals why staying mattered.
Looking back, Spring 1988 wasn't simply another semester.
It was the semester that transformed survival into belonging.
And that's a lesson I've carried with me ever since.
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