By Kendall Patterson
CCHS sophomore Aniyah Croom had the opportunity to attend the ALStar African American Youth Conference at the end of January.
The youth summit was held at West Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center in Jackson and hosted by The University of Tennessee at Martin WestStar Leadership Program. The inaugural summit was held in 2021, and the conference was held virtually until this year.
The ALStar Summit provided African American high school sophomores in West Tennessee the opportunity to learn from businessmen and women, including a panel of UT Martin alumni from varying fields of study. Students also learned about Blue Oval City and the positive impacts it will have on West Tennessee.
For Croom, one way the conference did help her is by narrowing down what she wanted to do for a career. She knew she wanted to do law but could not decide between business law and international law.
She now desires to pursue business law after being told of all the business opportunities Blue Oval City will have to offer when she graduates in 2025.
“That caught my eye a lot,” she said. “The year we graduate, we could be open to have these jobs and we won’t have to move far away from our town and our homes to find a job for what we wanted to do… There was a job for people who didn’t want to go to college and have a job for people who are right out of high school or for people who wanted to go to college or to go to TCAT, that’s where they could work instead of having to leave Tennessee.”
Croom mentioned how the most beneficial information she got out of the conference was learning all that the University of Tennessee at Martin had to offer from the many scholarships, variety of programs and that it was affordable compared to other colleges.
Overall, Croom said she enjoyed the conference.
“There was really a lot of good energy,” Croom said.
