Anyone with a degree of ambition knows that life can throw a monkey wrench into your best-laid plans, but those who came of age during the COVID-19 pandemic experienced that phenomenon on a scale never seen before. An entire generation was derailed and left to forge their way back on track through uncharted territory.
For Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) graduating senior Shakira Jean-Jules, that detour proved to be something wholly unexpected: Serendipity.
Jean-Jules grew up in Miami, Florida, “where the sun beams on your skin so hard, you’ll melt quicker than an ice cream cone.” She was raised by her parents, Haitian immigrants whose lives were rooted in faith and hard work. Her father was a business owner and pastor, and her mother was a nurse.
“They did their absolute best to raise me in a country that was foreign to them,” said Jean-Jules. “While they didn’t know much about the culture here, the one thing they knew deeply was the value of education.”
That belief drove Jean-Jules to excel at school. She kept her grades up, volunteered and prayed to get into a big-name school like the University of Florida or Florida State University. She felt in her heart it was her destiny, and as she approached her junior year, that goal seemed so close she could reach out and touch it. But the year was 2020. She was attending William H. Turner Technical Arts High School in Miami-Dade County, Florida. That March, when she and her classmates were sent home for Spring Break, they never returned.
“We thought we were almost at the finish line,” she recalled. “But there was no Junior Bash. Instead, we were sitting behind screens in school shirts and pajama pants, taking naps between classes. We didn’t need to hear the definition of ‘pandemic’ to know that life had changed. Many people lacked immunity, not just to the virus, but to the mental, emotional and financial toll it took.”
All the colleges she was aiming to attend required SAT scores for her application to even be considered. She scheduled and rescheduled her exam seven times before she realized it would just keep getting canceled.
“I felt lost. Stuck. Discouraged,” she said. “But then I stumbled on a GGC advertisement that mentioned a SAT waiver and free application. It felt too perfect.”
But it wasn’t. She started her first summer class at GGC with the intention of getting a nursing degree.
“I had no intention of getting involved or meeting people.”
Serendipity struck and she found a new passion for helping people when she changed her major to Health Science with a concentration in public health. But when out-of-state tuition became overwhelming and she started considering moving back to Miami, she realized she didn’t want to leave.
To stay, she joined the Georgia Army National Guard and GGC’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. What started as a way to pay for school turned into a family.
“We slept with bugs in the woods, baked in the hot Georgia sun pulling security and got lost in the dark doing land navigation,” she recalled. “Embracing the suck together is what brought us closer.”
It was then she realized everything she always wanted was right in front of her at GGC. She got involved, serving in multiple leadership roles and as a residential assistant for three years, and started a Bible study group that is still active today.
“Being a Grizzly has taught me humility,” she said. “It brought me into a community and handed me opportunities to build resilience. It wasn’t what I planned, but it’s what I needed, and I’m grateful.”
View and download Shakira Jean-Jules gallery images.