The name is T.J. Brown. I'm an engineer working at Walpole, the toughest correctional facility in the state of Massachusetts. My days are spent reading books, exercising and occasionally tussling with other workers. The facility is undergoing some expansion and I'm the lead engineer on this gig, working closely with the architect. Such is my life these days. I get paid lots of money to do a job I don't like with people who don't like me. I hate every second of it. It wasn't always like that, though. Once, I led a very different kind of life. Once, I had vision of a bright future and a fun-filled present. Yeah, I still remember it all too well.
Back in 2003, I was a student at the prestigious Woburn Institute of Technology in Woburn, Massachusetts. I had recently graduated from Hyde Park High School in Boston and Woburn Tech was offering me a full student-athlete scholarship. I was so happy I could have cried when I got the letter in the mail. I rushed to show my father, Edmond Brown. Dad was very happy for me. He works as a police officer in Dorchester and always wanted me to have a better life than he did. He accomplished a lot in his time. He was the first black man appointed Chief of Police in Bean Town. However, he felt that I could do much better. He always supported me in all my endeavors. We went to visit Woburn Tech during Orientation day.
Man, the place looked nice. Woburn was a really nice town. You needed money to buy property there. Woburn Tech was a really nice school. One of the top private technical schools in the state. It had very strong programs in computer science, engineering and various other technical fields. Woburn Tech had recently gone through a period of expansion. The school had eleven thousand students, most of whom were commuters. There were seventeen dorm buildings, each capable of housing about three hundred students or so. Demographically, the campus was promising. Fifty eight percent of the student body was male, and forty two percent were female. A whopping thirty two percent of the student body was of African-American descent, with twelve percent of the student population being Hispanic and twenty percent being Asian. Thirty six percent of the student body was Caucasian. This was considered to be the most diverse technical school in the country. I liked it on sight!
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