When Gisela Guymon graduated from Red Ross Classical High School with a modified ceremony during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 or started college in August without having had the freshman dorm experience, she felt like it was “the end of the world with few opportunities.”
“My classmates and I lost so much the last year of high school, and then my first year of college, I felt like there was no hope and no motivation,” she said last week. “I'm glad everyone tried to make the best of what it was, but it was really bad.”
Despite feeling depressed, Gaimon persevered.
As a senior mass communications major at North Carolina Central University, she is one of 25 students from a Historically Black College or University nationwide selected to AT&T's Dream in Black Rising Future Makers category.
Guymon said the national honor means a lot to her because she comes from a smaller town and goes to a smaller university.
“I never thought I would see my face associated with a million-dollar company like AT&T,” she said. “They can pick any 25 students. For them to sit there and go through 1,001 applications and look at my application and say, ‘This is the application,’ while they watch videos and read articles from other applications, that's unbelievable.”
