Everyone wants to have that dream of being the most popular kid in school come true. This can be through academics or athletics or however you define what being “known” really is. For me, it meant making a statement early on so I wouldn’t have any regrets in the future. I went to high school at Prosser Career Academy in Chicago and although it was not a big school like Whitney Young or Lane Tech, I took advantage of the many resources. Most importantly, I’ve met some great teachers with whom I still keep in contact with today. I ended up graduating with highest honors: a 4.3 GPA.

And there I was: graduating from high school and approaching a new chapter of my life by going to college. I had always been fascinated with going to U of I since I was in the sixth grade simply because of its memorable 2005 men’s basketball team featuring players such as Dee Brown, Deron Williams and Luther Head. 

During the fall 2011, after making the two-and-a-half-hour trip from Chicago down to Urbana, I can remember moving day as my parents and two older brothers dropped me off in front of my new home at Pennsylvania Avenue Residence halls, better known as PAR. 

As I wore my thick-framed glasses, an Illini T-shirt, skinny jeans and some new black Adidas, I was approached by my roommate Tim Ward, who is a close friend of mine from high school. He immediately laughed when he saw me. Most people say that rooming with one of your best friends is not ideal, but honestly, we are so similar that we immediately click. The fact that we both take pride in our grades and don’t drink or smoke almost seems as if I’m living with a brother of mine. While I was confident on the outside, on the inside, I was pretty nervous. I thought to myself, “Wow, so this is U of I, huh? There are 40,000 plus students here; how can I possibly make myself known in such a big place?”

I can recall watching the movie Spider-Man and the moment when Peter Parker was sitting in a big lecture hall answering questions. That is how I imagined all the classes at U of I to look. My largest class during my freshman year was my psychology class that consisted roughly 50 students, but it wasn’t until last year in my Intro to Statistics course I was in a class of 500 students. I began to realize that this was not just seen in movies but became an actual reality. 

I always took pride in sitting in the front regardless of the size of the class, but if you don’t take initiative, you will be known as No. 407 or whatever other nameless digit you happen to be assigned. And that was not what I wanted to be known as, but rather by my name: Torrence Sorrell. The first couple of weeks, I struggled in the course, but noticed a drastic improvement once I started to attend office hours and get tutoring from my teaching assistant, Jackie. She really cared about the students and saw me more as a person as opposed to a number.

Taking these kinds of steps does not make you a “teacher’s pet,” or any of that; it is doing what you can to succeed. Often times in college, students get intimidated by other students who may have been Valedictorians in their high schools or Gates Millennium Scholars, but to me, “an A is an A in any language.” Meaning that regardless if you are in a classroom with someone who may have gotten a 36 on his ACT, you’re just as valuable as that student. 

Not only did I want to make a statement in the classroom, but in my extracurricular life as well. And that is when I started reporting for The Daily Illini. 

I was undecided about my major during my freshman year, but as I started reporting for the DI, I became more attracted to broadcast journalism. Every time I tell someone that I attend U of I, they assume that I am an engineering or a business major (which are wonderful majors), but I feel that passion defeats a paycheck. A wise man once told me the old saying that if “I am loving what I do every day, then I will never have to work a day in my life.”

I initially wanted to become a sports reporter but did not get the job as one the first time around, so instead of giving up I decided to stick with news. I emailed the former assistant sports editor about my interest in sports and would always ask questions to the seniors at the time about the work that they produced on the sports staff. He admired my persistence and decided to give me a chance that would forever change my life. I was assigned my first beat: covering women’s tennis shortly after turnover. 

Now, as a rising junior, I am already the new assistant sports editor for multimedia at The Daily Illini. I’ve had my name put on the College of Media’s dean’s list, maintained a cumulative GPA of a 3.64 and have a solid social life at U of I. While I may not have gone to the best high school nor had a life where everything was handed to me on a silver-platter, I take pride in staying true to myself and never forgetting where I came from. I am just an African-American male who resides from the Westside of Chicago trying to make it, and by the Spring of 2015, that’s what everyone gone know me as. 

Torrence is a junior in Media. He can be reached at [email protected].