Meet Jalen D.
Individual Studies Graduate
I wasn't really playing attention to my grade point average. I was just doing the work.
Jalen came north from the Bronx to attend Hudson Valley and ran into a few hurdles, but they were nothing he couldn’t handle.
The IT career he initially hoped to study for? That had a bit too much math for him to see as a long-term career choice. The collegiate football aspirations he hoped to continue? A recurring knee injury closed that door.
But it also opened a new one. Physical therapy for his knee rehabilitation made him consider a career in the medical field, and that’s his goal as he moves on to the University at Albany to continue his college career.
Jalen admits that he had some trouble committing to school work in high school, but the move from New York City to Troy and the opportunity to study in the quiet of his own apartment changed something. In the classroom, he went from being hesitant to confident and, surprisingly to him, an honor student who was named to the 2022 All NYS Academic Team by Phi Theta Kappa, the national honor society for two-year colleges. Honor society was never really a goal, he said, but just a by product of his hard work.
“If your grades are high, you're going to be successful,” he said. “I'm going to push my grades so I can reach that goal of becoming a physical therapist. I played football my entire life, but it was never going to be a priority ahead of everything else.”
