When Freedom Became a Setback: College, Atlanta & Finding My Direction

After three years at military school, I thought freedom was exactly what I wanted. At Virginia State University, nobody told me when to wake up, when to go to class, when to study, or when to go to sleep. After years of having nearly every part of my day structured, suddenly every decision was mine. And I wasn’t ready for it. I chose business as my major, partly because business was something I had seen through my father. But I didn’t take college seriously enough, and after three years I left Virginia State without completing what I had started. At the time, it felt like I had wasted three years and a lot of my parents’ money. Then a weekend trip to Atlanta introduced me to a city that felt strangely familiar. The Caribbean community and culture made Atlanta feel like a home away from home, and by the end of 2003, I had moved there. I still didn’t know what my career would become. Instead, I became interested in entertainment, acting, cameras, and film production. In 2004, I met Casandra while working on a short film. We began auditioning together and eventually created Benech Productions. We recorded audition tapes, weddings, birthday celebrations, acting classes, commercials, and short films. Along the way, I started teaching myself video editing and becoming more interested in the technology behind production. Looking back, this part of my journey didn’t follow a straight line. College didn’t work out the way I expected. I didn’t have a clear career plan. But Atlanta, film, technology, and meeting the woman who would eventually become my wife were all beginning to move my life in a new direction. Sometimes what looks like a setback isn’t the end of the journey. It’s the part where the direction begins to change.