Great Grads:Brandi Barron

Barron Graduates in Three Years Debt-Free and Starts Journey to Master’s Degree

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At the start of the 2020 academic year, students graduating high school were faced with a world of uncertainty as the nation learned more about the 2019 novel coronavirus.

The uncertainty led Brandi Barron, who is earning a degree in Communication Arts with a minor in Entrepreneurship, to search for a University that allowed her to stay close to family. After her first tour at Johnson C. Smith University, she knew she found a second home with a family that would help her achieve her goals ahead of schedule.

“While at JCSU, I have completed five internships with three of my most notable being a media and podcast intern with Angela Rye and internships with Decoded Advertising and Ally Financial,” she said. “I’m not the first person in my family to graduate from college, but I am the first person in my family to attend an HBCU, and I will graduate debt-free in just three years.”

During her time at JCSU, Barron has also participated in multiple pitch competitions and experiential learning opportunities, including TMCF x Ally Moguls in the Making pitch competition, the HBCU Battle of the Brains and the Black Sport Business Symposium.

Outside of the classroom, Barron became heavily involved in many aspects of student life. She introduced and became the inaugural president of Young Life, an organization meant to offer Christian programming to JCSU students, faculty and staff.

She was initiated into the Gamma Lambda Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., in fall 2021. After joining the sorority, she was appointed to the regional leadership team as an N.C. State Facilitator to serve as a liaison between the state’s collegiate chapters and the sorority’s regional leadership.

A standout moment from her time at JCSU was the Bull Rush the Polls voting initiative in 2022 where she was able to introduce a special speaker to campus, the Hon. Marcia L. Fudge, who serves as the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

“I might be biased considering she is my soror (sorority sister), but it was nice to have an appointed official visit campus to encourage students to get out and vote,” she said. “I also enjoyed marching to the polls and chanting. The moment was exhilarating and empowering. I felt purposeful, like I was doing something for my local Black community.”

Barron said JCSU taught her a lot about time management as she juggled the responsibilities of staying focused in class, while also being a part of the many organizations she’s joined on campus.

She said she also learned the power of networking.

“It has always been said to me, ‘it’s not what you know but who you know.’ However, I have found that it’s not who you know, but who knows you,” she said. “I learned how to nurture relationships beyond just meeting people, and it’s done me well. I am no longer an ‘I let my work speak for me,’ type of person. I engage in conversation and am more sociable in professional environments.”

Barron’s achievements both in and out of the classroom, and her emphasis on networking, have prepared her to take on a post-graduate internship in Minneapolis, where she will work directly with the Chief Communications Officer of Thrivent, a Fortune 500 not-for-profit financial services organization. She plans to simultaneously pursue a master’s degree in Communications.