One Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) scholar moved away from home for college and faced a difficult first year.
Ashton Hall, a junior computer engineering major at North Carolina A&T State University, moved to Greensboro from Rochester, New York.
“My freshman year was my roughest year,” Hall said. “I had a very low GPA coming out of the fall semester and I was on academic probation, as well.”
Unsure if computer engineering was what he really wanted to do, he had conversations with his family and decided to stick with it.
“I got adjusted. I had to learn quickly,” Hall said. “I had to build a work ethic and be very strong-minded.”
Since then, Hall said his GPA has been going up and his opportunities have been growing.
He was a recent participant in Leadership Institute and the Lowes immersion experience. He’s also had two internships with The Home Depot.
“I had two software engineer internships with The Home Depot and through that process changed to pre-sales system engineering, which dealt with radio systems and design implementation,” Hall said.
Hall said his love for technology began when he was young and developed through helping family members do things like print from their laptop. His dad used to have a computer in the hallway that he would explore.
“I would just turn it on and start playing with it, or just start putting it on random settings, whether it be boot mode, recovery mode, etc.,” Hall said. “I was just young and exploring the auxiliary inputs and outputs of a computer. So when my dad noticed, he said, ‘Wow, you will be a very good tech person.’”
Hall said those words were always inscribed in his head and he began to notice a trend as he grew up.
“Anytime I would go near a laptop or a desktop around anyone that was of an older age, they were like, ‘Wow, you’re very good with technology,’” Hall said.
He began taking computer science classes in high school and decided he wanted to explore life outside of Rochester.
“I went to a predominantly white high school for most of my high school career,” Hall said. “So I just wanted a change of pace and a change of environment.”
His experience at an HBCU has been amazing, he said.
“There are so many opportunities people are able to bless upon you and you’re able to explore,” he said. “It allows you to dream bigger. It allows you to see a bigger vision, a bigger goal.”
Hall hopes to work within a hardware engineering or radio frequency engineering role at a tech company or financial institution after graduation. He’d also like to relocate to larger cities such as Washington, D.C.; Charlotte, North Carolina; Atlanta; Dallas or Austin, Texas.
He also had words of advice for students that may be dealing with setback in their academic or professional journeys.
“Just believe in yourself and try to do whatever you can and what you’re working toward will eventually come,” Hall said. “It may not come now, but eventually whatever opportunity you’re working toward will come.”
