“Dear Ahniaelyah Spraggs, we regret to inform you..” were the words I’ll never forget reading. Initially, I was rejected from Virginia Commonwealth University.

I’ve known I’ve wanted to come to VCU since I was in the eighth grade. I wanted to get out of Farmville, VA, a small, rural town in which there isn’t much to do for fun. Going to Richmond, VA to do school shopping, passing by VCU and seeing the beautiful buildings as my mom would drive across the Robert E. Lee bridge was always exciting. So one can only imagine my disappointment when I received my rejection letter.

Initially, my plan was to attend VCU and major in theater. All throughout high school, I aspired to be an actress. I even participated in my high school’s Drama and Forensics teams. However, it wasn’t until senior year that I realized I wasn’t passionate about acting at all.

I remember when I had my last Forensics script in front of me and I had decided to use various accents. One of those accents I chose was a Jamaican accent. However, “my Jamaican accent” sounded somewhat like a professor who speaks with a monotone voice—absolutely boring. Still, I refused to do anything about it and went on ahead with my performance.

When Conference came, the audience was completely confused and of course, I knew why. Having that accent did not align with that script at all, but I still didn’t care to change it. And when I didn’t make it to Regionals, I was unfazed.

Fast forward to the day I practiced for my audition to get into VCU’s theater program. I had to perform both a serious and humorous monologue. For my serious monologue, I chose one involving crying, a technique that can be butchered easily. Still, I practiced until I eyes burned.

February 12th was the date of my audition. I showed up on campus in a red dress and red dress shoes I absolutely hated. It was freezing out, so my legs were suffering and to make matters worse, my ankles were ashy and I couldn’t find the building where my audition was. With two minutes to spare, my family and I eventually found the building.

When the time came for me to perform my monologues in a closed off room with about three judges, I was very nervous. And when my tears that I had mastered in my mom’s room were suddenly not falling from eyes, I knew this wasn’t the career for me. Needless to say, I walked out of that room knowing I wasn’t going to get into the program. However, just being on campus was everything and I tried to remain optimistic.

Weeks later when my rejection letter came in the mail, I was hurt. At that point, I was still trying to convince myself that acting was the career for me. However, when offered the opportunity to still come to VCU and have another audition within a year I finally realized that I didn’t care that much about acting.

Suddenly, I had to figure out what I was going to do with my life if I wasn’t going to be the next Viola Davis. Talking with co-workers, that attended Longwood University, made me realize I didn’t want to waste too much time picking a major.

Then it hit me—I loved to write. I also realized I liked to watch the news every morning and edit my school’s newspaper. So after deciding on majoring in journalism, I sent off my paperwork again to VCU. But the wait to hear back was unbearable. While many of my classmates were receiving acceptance letter after acceptance letter and I too got rejected from my second choice, University of Richmond, I was feeling helpless.

However, in April, after a long day’s work at Domino’s, I finally received my acceptance letter in the mail. I was beyond happy to finally know I was going to be a Ram. My first year ended up being an absolute breeze. However, attending a school of about 30,000 students, when I graduated amongst about 100 other people, took some getting used to.

Today I am a junior and I major in broadcast journalism. Last semester I had the pleasure of having a professor who worked at NBC12 and a professor who is an anchor for CBS6. This semester I am a reporter for Capital News Service, which is a capstone.

With CNS, I have the ability to have my work published in the Washington Post, Daily Press or a slew of other news outlets. I know how to film and edit a package by myself. And with each and every story I do or package I complete, I find myself caring enough to want to go back and fix my mistakes.

I feel more than ready to enter the real world of journalism upon graduation. And I’m more than happy that I did not allow that rejection letter to get me down. And as an RA, I am proud to walk these halls rocking black and gold!