Finding a home 8,657 miles away from home

The distance from Durban, South Africa, to Athens, Ohio, is 8,657 miles, crossing the vast Atlantic Ocean. When I first hopped a plane destined for the United States to pursue a career as a college athlete, I was unaware that my journey would lead me to Ohio University.

My experience as a student-athlete (swimmer) began at Indian River State College, a quaint but wholesome junior college where, after two years, I fostered the determination to transfer to OHIO, an NCAA Division I university, in pursuit of not only the next level athletically, but also academically through the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. My junior year was a chaotic, messy, but ultimately rewarding experience. I learned to integrate the rigors of being a Scripps kid with a 20-hour weekly athletic schedule, including swim meets and my responsibilities as a reporter for The Post.

My junior year was the most defining of my OHIO experience, but not for conventional reasons. During the first months of training, I developed neurological thoracic outlet syndrome, which caused nerve impingements, numbness and pain in my right arm when I swam. After eight months of modifications to my swimming program, in August 2019, the team doctor advised that I medically disqualify, or retire from the sport permanently. As an athlete, the “never give up” mentality is so ingrained in your psyche that it’s very difficult to acknowledge when it’s time to choose your health over your sport. What I didn’t know at the time is that my fellow Bobcats and Ohio University community would rally around me in new and exciting ways, helping me reinvent myself my senior year.

During my final year at OHIO, I was hired as a lead tutor at the Student Writing Center and reported for The Post and Thread Magazine. I took invigorating magazine feature writing and production classes with professors who challenged me to write meaningful stories about real people’s experiences. I enrolled in a “Journalism and Trauma” class with Associate Lecturer Nerissa Young who taught me how to challenge systems of inequality and make journalism a sustainable career in a turbulent world.

It was in the midst of a busy spring semester that my and my fellow 2020 classmates’ student experiences were disrupted in unimaginable ways by the COVID-19 pandemic. In a few short days, the greater OHIO community was relegated to studying and working from home, social distancing in the name of health and safety. I spent the last few months of spring semester holed up in my apartment, tutoring students virtually and working with my editor and fellow reporters to remotely publish weekly issues of The Post to keep our OHIO community updated. While distance kept us apart, our Bobcat community banded together, strengthening an already strong alliance formed by a mutual love for Ohio University and its home communities.

As I prepare to leave Athens for graduate school at the University of Missouri, I am so grateful for my OHIO journey, for the community I’ve found here and know that I will always have a home 8,657 miles away from home.

Celebrating OHIO's class of 2020

More than 500 alumni from 31 states and six countries registered for the Ohio University Alumni Association’s Senior Postcard Project, sending 7,530 messages of encouragement to the Class of 2020. See how OHIO celebrated this historic class.

Feature photography by Ben Wirtz Siegel, BSVC '02