’21 Honoree Shyanne Smith

“I will be completely transparent: I was a little skeptical when COVID-19 first started. I was like, ‘Oh, it’s just like the flu, it will be OK.’ But then, more information started to be released and when Governor DeWine announced that there would be a curfew – a real, live curfew – it made this real to me, and I converted to a believer. It was life-changing. We couldn’t go out anymore, not even to the grocery store. It made me really hesitant about visiting relatives. I think that’s when it started to seem real. Initially, and even now, I find myself getting frustrated because I wish more people abided by the curfew, because it really is about the government thinking about our safety. They want me to be safe, I want my family to be safe, I want all my friends to be safe, and our community to be safe.”

“But, I wrestle with anxiety and depression, and have my entire college experience. Prior to COVID, it was very easy to get around those things by physically having to walk to class; interacting with classmates; interacting with friends, colleagues, administration; going to the store. But when we had to stay inside, it brought me face-to-face with a lack of motivation, a lot of ‘I don't think I can do this’ thoughts. With my depression, it makes me feel really bogged down, like I can’t do a lot of stuff. So COVID really flipped me in terms of adapting and I had to actually deal with those.”

”I really had to look at where these things were coming from, how I can improve, how I can reframe. I did a lot of telehealth counseling sessions, with two counselors. And it was extremely helpful to address what I really want out of life, out of this situation, for myself. I think that perseverance has definitely been present in a lot of other aspects of my life, like when I was a kid in grade school, I’d always push on, I’d always been capable. What really made college different is that it’s very much ‘you oriented.’ You no longer show up to school and they tell you what you’re going to learn, when you’re going to learn, and for how long. Now, it’s basically in your hands, and I wasn’t used to having that type of control. I didn’t know what to do with it. Part of me wondered ‘am I doing this for me or am I doing this because my family says so? Am I doing this because high school guidance counselors said, ‘you need to go to college’? Despite how I felt growing up, I feel like this degree that will be hanging up on my wall come mid-May is for me. But if I was going to accomplish it, I had to take baby steps, because I’m very easily overwhelmed. A list of five things to do can suddenly turn into a mountain for me, but chopping it into those baby steps, into little digestible pieces, was the framework that changed it for me.”

“I’m not one to toot my own horn or pat myself on the back at all, but I am proud that I managed to make it through circumstances that many would consider to be ‘game over.’ Our very own UD Counseling Center has been an immense help to who you see here today. My sophomore year, I had worked myself up and had a really rough time. The fact that I am here is, I will say, a blessing. I’m happy that I stayed because, if I didn’t, I would not have been able to see the kids in my family grow up. I wouldn’t have been able to see my best friend get accepted into graduate school, or have my own moments of success. I originally wanted to come in as Pre-Med, but came in as Discover Science until I declared Biology as a major. I struggled a lot in math, and it was really challenging, and I felt at the time that maybe I was trying to do something just because it had been on my mind all of high school. My whole life I wanted to be a doctor, for as long as I can remember – and I still do. But there were many suggestions I should do something else. I came to Sociology for the way it is set up to study social systems: why credit is bad or credit is good; or how a system continuously disadvantages minorities; or why certain areas of the city look the way that they do and have the resources that they do.”

“But I have a plan for Medical School, and I think the fact that I’m a Sociology major is an advantage. I now understand the social factors of why, for example, Black people are less likely to go to doctors and less likely to ask questions than another race or ethnicity, so maybe they would be more willing to ask me questions. I want to take a break academically for about six months, and I plan to work full-time for a little bit, and then about this time next year, my goal is to get those prerequisite classes that I need. By Fall of next year, I will either be trying to get in or I will be in Med School. But this Sociology degree was something that I’ve worked for my entire life, and I am so close to being done and I want to show my nieces, cousins, and nephew that ‘you can do it.’ I want to show my friends and my family, ‘Hey I did this.’ ”

“My decision to be transparent and tell my story came from reading about a lot of instances throughout history – experiences that are not talked about traditionally – but that a lot of people experience. At one point, when I thought about graduation, I thought, ‘I don't think I’m going to make it.’ But here we are, graduating. Nice. That’s tenacity. I try to make that a reality. Like I said, ‘little baby steps.’ Yeah.”