Hi, my name is Joshua Harke and I’m from Syracuse, NY. I’ve lived in Charlotte since I was 13 years old. In the summer of 1994, we moved to Charlotte, NC. It was a huge culture shock and life change for a new teenager. I went to a few different schools here; I went to Randolph Middle School for 7th grade and I was bullied there so my parents moved me the next school year to Bible Baptist Christian Academy in Matthews. I liked it there and played soccer in middle school. I also attended church there with my family. I transferred schools after my junior year to United Faith Christian Academy. I loved it there and grew into a great high school athlete. I played in the praise band and played soccer, baseball was even the mascot, and outside of school, I played ice hockey on a local team and for the Junior, Checkers travel team. I made Who’s Who Among Highschool Americans my senior year. I also couldn’t decide what I wanted to be as an adult and that’s fine. I had an internship in a sports med clinic that I really enjoyed but I also was a Teacher's Aid to my Phys Ed teacher at school. I was torn between teaching and sports med.
I
applied to a few colleges and I’m not sure where I applied. I remember UNC
Charlotte and NC State. I chose to stay close to mom and dad but live on campus
for the experience. I attended the summer transitional program for freshmen
called UTOP and it was fun I made friends that looked like me, which was
important because honestly, I didn’t have many friends that looked like me.
It’s a minority engagement program and it was a fun time. In the fall semester
of 2001, was just like every other freshman on campus, I made friends and went
to class, did my homework, and even wanted to pledge Lambda Chi Alpha. I don’t
remember the day or the trauma that triggered my manifestation but everything
went downhill. I stopped going to classes, I became depressed, and my parents had
to take me to a psychiatrist. I had manifested bipolar. My advisor at the
school convinced my parents to let me try finishing my spring semester. I
dropped out of both. As far as I knew that was going to be my college
career.
It took
a lot of therapy and time to get adjusted to life again but in 2006, I think,
it’s 2023, and my timeline gets a little fuzzy around my manifestation. It took me
6 years to get a 2-year Associate in Business Administration with a
concentration in Retail Visual Merchandising. It was the proudest moment of my
life. Along that path had been some major setbacks. My little brother passed
away from a malpractice incident with his nurse, he died from an infection that
he couldn’t overcome after a nurse broke his femur doing a range of motion with
him. In Jan 2007, my little brother passed away. I overcame a kickboxing injury
to my sternoclavicular joint, chest, and back when I returned to UNC Charlotte
in 2009. That Fall, I had pink eye, mono, the life-changing injury, and
then in the fall the flu and pink eye again. I was devastated because I for
sure thought my calling was to be back at UNC Charlotte again. So I finished
with that associate's degree. It was a great success but that’s not where I
stopped.
Time
passed and I had become tired of struggling and not getting where I wanted to
be with this degree from Central Piedmont. It was 8 years of struggling with my
health and living situations that were less ideal for me. I value peace and
serenity and the roommates, that I had been living with were less than ideal
for me. My goal someday is to be a fully functioning adult with bipolar. I
decided to return to CPCC and get a transfer degree, thank God, I only needed
three classes. So I took all the steps to get back into CPCC and jump all of
their hurdles of getting my financial aid back in place since I hadn’t been a student in such a long time.
I started the semester 2 weeks late and I had to plead my case to the Professors
there that I would indeed be a rockstar in their classes. I completed all my
classes with a, well who cares, the one class I was most proud of tackling was
Bio because it was that class I said I was going to be a rockstar in with an
A. I was a rockstar indeed. I came to class and caught myself up and did all
the work needed and the extra credit because this was very important to me to
get back into UNC Charlotte. I had the desire to come back for my third and last
try. In Dec 2018, my mom passed away tragically from an infection that just
wouldn’t stop spreading and it eventually took her life. She was a teacher and
social worker and loved kids. So what better way to come full circle from high
school than to become a teacher like others in my family and honor the woman
who adopted me. It took a lot of kicking through closed doors to end up at UNC
Charlotte in the fall of 2020. I was welcomed back and I’ve been thriving here.
I’ve met
some wonderful friends in the Special Education program and have had some
amazing professors. I’ve worked so hard to stay on track through having more
bad roommates and unpleasant living arrangements while working multiple jobs
just to be able to live while I attend UNC Charlotte. The only thing I’ve
really wanted in life was to be normal but being plugged in with the disability
services has allowed me to meet many abnormal individuals doing great things
for this campus. I’m proud to be a 49er and get teared up as I write this
letter to you all who are reading this. It’s taken me 20 years to graduate from
this great school. While some students say they are settling for UNC Charlotte
because it’s close to home, I’m not one of them. The third time is the charm they say
and I feel so proud to be graduating on May 13th, 2023 at 10 am.
When my name is called, I’m going to float across that stage and probably be in
tears because this is real and I didn’t give up on my calling.
This isn’t just a dream because I
couldn’t hear the calling that was in my heart all these years. It took
overcoming trauma to hear that faint voice saying you belong here at UNC
Charlotte but you need to work with kids. They need you and you need them. So
it has been with great joy that I get to become a Special Education Teacher and
work with some exceptionally amazing children and learn how to serve them. I
would love to ring the bell and I feel I above all other students deserve to
ring it.