Growing up with little money and limited resources, Winston Crisp was expected to achieve something greater than what the previous generation in his family had.
To Crisp’s family, that meant becoming either a doctor or lawyer.
“I come from a family that until my generation came along, no matter how hard people had worked or no matter how smart people were, they just weren’t able to manage the opportunity for a college career,” says Crisp, vice president for student affairs at the University of Southern California (USC).
However, after being introduced to his first frog in science class, Crisp realized that the medical field was not for him. He later decided to pursue a career as a civil rights lawyer.
After being accepted to Johnson C. Smith University, Crisp became the first in his family to attend college.
“Everybody in my family before then spent their lives working at whatever job, whatever career, whatever work they could manage to find without regard to how fulfilling it was or whether it was really what they were dreaming about,” he says.
When first attending college, Crisp felt unprepared. He often spent time worrying about not being able to fit in because he felt that he didn’t look like the other students in terms of how he dressed or the experiences he had.
