I’m from Harlem in New York, and I’m a sociology major and criminal justice minor at Buffalo State. Before coming to Buffalo State, I attended Promise Academy, a charter school in Harlem which was very helpful in getting me and my classmates through high school to college. Growing up, I always wanted to do criminal justice because it was always a passion of mine, especially around policies like stop-and-frisk and police harassment of African-Americans. I wanted to learn about the criminal justice system as it is so that I could help to implement changes.

I originally started college at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania on an athletic scholarship playing basketball, but it was too much of a shock—and too different from what I was used to in New York City—for me to adjust to the change of environment. I left mid-semester and applied to different schools and Buffalo State got back to me first. Because I left Gannon mid-semester, though, my grades never transferred, and I am not currently receiving a scholarship. Thankfully, I didn’t have to take out loans, but my family and I are paying out of pocket around $5000-6000 per semester.

Though I get some funding for textbooks through Promise Academy, the bill easily adds up to $500 per semester, and this term I have one class with six different assigned texts. In my experience, a lot of the time these books aren’t useful, and we only use them once or twice.

I have had advisors, but I have had difficulty connecting with them. I have to reach out to them, and when I started and was struggling, my advisor wasn’t reaching out to me and didn’t ask about how I was doing. I think we need more funding for advisors so that they can monitor students more actively. As it is, I didn’t meet my advisor until my third year here.

A clearer and better funded system needs to be implemented to allow students to get advice in a timely way. As a senior, now I know the people to talk to and have no problem going to the chair of my department. So now I have better resources, but I’m at the end of my time at Buffalo State. There needs to be better communication about resources that are available and how to get to them. Students like me shouldn’t fall off the grid and not be able to catch up with their work. I think better funding would increase graduation rates.