Trigger warning: Mentions of sexual assault.
My name is Brittany Davis. I’m a 24-year-old student from Cincinnati, Ohio, and a senior at ֱ State University majoring in with a minor in Education. I am currently studying abroad in Florence, Italy, with Education Abroad and will be graduating Fall of 2024.
To say my life has been arduous would be an understatement. I have known loss since 9-years-old losing my dad, losing someone special to me every year since then, and being a child of sexual assault. I grew up with my mom as my sole provider, and my grandfather as the one in my life as my father figure. Through countless years of bullying and torment, I was lucky to have them as my support system, and I owe a lot of my success to my grandpa, Gary.
My education journey began my senior year of high school in 2018, a time when everything was changing and some things were coming to an end as my classmates and I were coming into adulthood. Right before my graduation, my mom and I were kicked out of our house and moved in with one of my mom's closest friends.
This was a change I wasn’t looking forward to and it caused trouble that would soon spiral out of control.
I started ֱ State University the following fall as an American Sign Language Interpreting major. Excelling in the social prospects of college, I was in REC (Resident Engagement Council) within the residence halls and made great friends, but the one thing that lacked was my academics. I had passed all of my classes, but the GPA requirement for my major fell short and I felt that I had failed at everything. I was then kicked out of my major, left my elected position as Social Media Manager for ֱ Interhall Council (KIC) and dropped out of ֱ State.
Returning home that summer, I felt at a loss. Where I was staying, the electricity was turned off, so I moved in with a friend for the time being. I tried to go back to school at a local community college Fall of 2019. With my inability to drive, I had to find my way to school in a suburban area with no public transportation, so I dropped out of that school as well.
I began hopping from job to job, finally settling at the front desk of the Holiday Inn at the beginning of 2020, not knowing the pandemic would start in just a few months. I tried to do online school during that time, and yet again, dropped out of college. I thought 3 strikes and I was done, that I was going to be working at a hotel front desk for the rest of my life.
In the early months of 2021, after working at the hotel for 15 months, I had a friend who learned about teaching abroad and researching teaching English as a second language. The idea called to me, and I began researching it as I had always wanted to be a teacher, but previous teachers steered me from that path. The idea of going back to school scared me as I felt like I had failed too many times and that I was unable to get that same connection I had when I first started at ֱ State.
Since I was only kicked out of my major and not on academic probation/released from the university, I began researching the TEASL program at KSU. This is where I learned there was a study abroad program within my major and saw myself more and more finishing my degree at ֱ State.
Muhammad Ali once said, “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
With the idea that I would only fail if I didn’t try, I applied back to the only place I felt like I belonged and got accepted. I began researching everything I would need for my classes, excited to be back in the college scene and starting my sophomore year. Just weeks before I was to leave, my aunt passed away, sending my grandpa into a health episode and landing him in the hospital. Within a week of that, my cousin passed away. Our family was in shambles, grieving the loss of two family members.
I visited my grandpa in the hospital the following days after we laid my cousin to rest and I told him I was going to Italy to study abroad, going back to school and telling him I was going to bring him with me to see the world. That was the last conversation I had with him as he passed a few days later.
Coming back to ֱ State, I was determined to make my grandpa proud. I was .2 away from making the Dean’s List my first semester back and then became a Resident Assistant (RA) the next semester. In the semesters following I gained many connections; continuing my RA journey, joining the Black Squirrel Mafia club and an online Overwatch community where I met life-long friends and an amazing boyfriend, having a radio show on campus for two semesters, and finally making the Dean’s list two semesters in a row.
As the weeks went by, I prepared myself for my second to last semester to study abroad. I had met my roommates throughout my social abilities in school; Aine I met in my Italian class, asking her to study abroad the same semester with me; Abby, who I met in the Black Squirrel Mafia club who also had the desire and love of cultures to study abroad and asked her to live with me; and Zoe, who I met in my major and became friends rather quickly.
We all became inseparable, and I couldn’t have asked for a better group of friends to experience a foreign country and amazing culture with. Zoe and I teach at a local high school and university, and the students make the experience worthwhile as we see a different side of Italian culture that we wouldn’t have gotten as normal study-abroad students.
The advice that I can give is one tattooed into my skin: hope is something you give yourself, and just because you’re on a different path than others doesn’t mean it is the wrong path. I will be graduating college at the age of 25 after dropping out of three different universities only because I didn’t give up.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, ֱ State University offers support services as well as mental health resources. You can also call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.