One Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) scholar has ambitions of becoming a financial advisor after life experiences motivated him to create generational wealth.
Davon Bell, a senior business management major at Virginia State University, said his interest in finance is rooted in being born to teenage parents.
“They made a lot of mistakes. It was kids raising kids,” Bell said. “I just grew up around a lot of people who mismanaged their money. They didn’t know how to manage it properly, didn’t know how to invest properly. They lost a lot of money and stuff like that.”
He watched those around him closely and decided it wouldn’t be that way for him.
“I decided I can’t be like everybody else. You know what I mean? I’ve got to be different,” Bell said.
He’s experienced a difficult path since birth, arriving 18 weeks early and weighing one pound.
“I was the smallest baby ever to make it out of the Iowa City Ronald McDonald House alive,” Bell said. “I was given 72 hours to live and then when that 72 hours came and I was still breathing, the doctors were like, ‘Well, he’s gonna have a very difficult life.’”
He said doctors didn’t think he would be able to walk, but he defied the odds. Bell competed in basketball, football, track, wrestling, swimming and baseball.
Bell also had to deal with the adversity of losing his parents.
“I grew up with two parents, you know, and then it became one parent and then it became zero parents,” he said. “I had to learn to adapt on-the-fly very well.”
Through TMCF, Bell has been able to ease the financial burden of higher education while navigating life as a first-generation college student. He’s a two-time TMCF scholarship recipient, which allowed him to move off campus and give him a cushion to pursue his passion: investing.
“I take a portion of that money and I invest in stocks and stuff like that,” Bell said. “When I start managing money and helping clients as a financial advisor, I have that background.”
Bell has ambitious goals after finishing his undergraduate degree. He wants to own a sports agency, which requires additional education. He plans to pursue a master’s in international business at Louisiana State University and a law degree, possibly at Thurgood Marshall School of Law. He’s also looking forward to investing in real estate.
He maintains a positive outlook, he said, because he’s learned that success comes from getting up after a setback.
“I didn’t come from much, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to get much,” Bell said.
