 HBC Dudgets Radio, welcome back to our TMCF Advocacy series profiling the best and brightest from historically black colleges and universities and all the behind the scenes masters who work to make TMCF a true asset to the HBCU community. We're continuing our conversations around the TMCF Hennessey Fellowship or TMCF Hennessey's Fellows Program, which is launching graduate students from historically black colleges into a very powerful pipeline that is looking to unlock the C-Sweetened. Today, our distinguished guest is brother Jonathan Jones, he is a double graduate of Florida Animal University with his bachelor's in chemical engineering. And is it this fall or is it spring coming up? It is in the spring. It is the spring. I'll be graduating my double master's. Double master's, MBA and supply chain. So congratulations to you brother and congratulations on being among the first in this really distinguished program co-branded by TMCF and Hennessey. Can you tell us a little bit more about the program? We talked yesterday with Ms. Dana Brown, who is a program director with it, but you're the first person we talked to who has participated in it. Can you tell us a little bit about the application process and what it was like to get accepted into the initiative? Wow. So the application process, so first off the program, the Hennessey Fellows Program is groundbreaking. It's eye-opening. It's been life-changing for me and it is worth everything, every part of the application process to get a part of it. So the application process is pretty stringless because the goal is to get the best of the best in the program. And I truly believe my cohorts are some of the best of the best. They're absolutely outstanding. So you have two interviews for myself. I had a phone screening interview. I also had an in-person interview. You have to write a 500 to 750 page word essay kind of saying why you would want to be a part of the fellowship. What does it mean to you? How will you pay it forward if being accepted? You have to have two letters of recommendation, a character reference and a professional slash class reference. And I mean, it is... It's a thing. As stringless as it is, I mean, I would do it again and again and again because the program itself has been absolutely life-changing. I mean, when you're able to say that you're going to get up to $30,000 in financial assistance, which thank you, Hennessey and Thurgood Marshall, I got the full $30,000. Yeah. Yeah. So that was beautiful. We got an opportunity to implement a community service project into your community that you pitched as a capstone project. And thankfully, I received the full $10,000 to implement my project into the community. You get networking opportunities, you have professional forums, you have opportunities for leadership training and assortment of different things. And when you take away the financial assistance, you can take it away and you can just say the networking is absolutely incredible. I mean, being able to... You can't even fathom... I could fathom before this that I would have a CEO that I could talk to every month, every couple of weeks, whenever I want to call and to think that I now have four CEOs of major Fortune 500, actually Fortune 100 companies that I can call on any time, talk about any kind of thing, not just professionally, just about life and about their journey. It's something that you won't get anywhere else. And I would advise everybody, despite the application process, apply, apply, apply. It's truly been life changing for me. Talk about that first experience, whether it was a conversation or meeting with a CEO or the bootcamp experience. What was the first time that you were cognitively aware? Man, this is the real deal. This is something that's... This is rare air here. Wow. So the very first day, the very first day, the very first session, we are meeting with... It was a Monday. We went through leadership and throughout leadership, we met a guy. His name is Charles Marinoff, who has been with Breakthrough Breakfast Group and is now the chairman of Bergen Marshall College Fund, multi-billionaire, spoke to us. We're meeting with the rare air, the executives, the top level positions of all of LVMH, Millette Hennessey, Louis Vuitton. This is the first day, the president and CEO of Belvedere, Mr. Roddy Williams. This is the first day. So this isn't in here. I mean, all of these giants of people are coming and they're talking to and they're so kind. They really want to help. They're so helpful. You know, if you want to get their contact information, contact them, talk to them. We want to help you get to where you are. It was incredible. And the week just got better. I mean, it was everything that you would expect it plus way more. I mean, we had a communication session with Ms. Brandy Bolton here teaching us about how to communicate. We had executive presence, Ms. Linda Clements, who teaches you that only 7% of communication is verbal. 93% of communication is tonality and body language. We have accountability sessions. We have, I mean, business acumen. It was absolutely incredible. The bootcamp is stringless as the application process. But anything that you want in life is tough, anything that is rewarding. And it's absolutely rewarding experience. I mean, I'm really so grateful to be sitting in this position and to say that I've learned, I've grown so much throughout this process. And it's not even over. And I mean, it's overwhelming. Overwhelming. I could bet. Tell us, tell us a little bit about your personal background. One of the things I always, when we when we get a chance to talk with high achieving students and graduates from HBC uses, it would it the assumption would be that you had your choice of schools and you chose Florida A&M. What about FAMU? Inclined you to choose. And what about FAMU? Affirm that choice. Wow. So when I applied to go to school, I got into every school that I applied for in high school, every school that I applied for, I applied in the state of Florida, every single one I applied for, I got to. And FAMU was not even wasn't even the first on my radar. My mom is a Spellman grad and she's been she's really big on HBC use. And Florida A&M was one of the ones that was really looking out and giving a lot of money at the time. And, you know, I said, you know, OK, you know, I'll go to I'll go to FAMU, you know, not thinking anything of it. And when I took it, FAMU was the absolute best decision I could have ever made in my entire life, because I truly believe that nobody is going to love and support you like HBC do. Nobody, nobody is going to try to get you to that level, try to love on you throughout the struggle, you know, cast aside you when you're in the HBC too. You learn so much about your culture and you learn so much about yourself being at HBC. I grew up in a predominantly Hispanic culture. I went to a high school that was actually 89 percent Hispanic in Cyprus Creek High School down in Orlando, Florida. And so when I first got to FAMU, it was a culture shock for me. It was a culture shock. And when I say I learned so much about myself, I really grew into the person I am today. And I want to I want to also say that it was tough. It was tough. I, you know, that's what HBC don't get a lot of credit for, that they're rigorous. Like there's this impression like, oh, you know, HBC was easy. No, no, the F it ain't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so imagine it is very difficult. You're working hard. But the thing that was so difficult for me and I definitely want to say to somebody because this is something that I needed to hear at the time. I struggled mightily. I got it. I got into any school I could have gotten to. And I got to school and I didn't know how to prioritize. I didn't know how to time manage and my grades and everything dropped because of that. I struggled. And I know it's a lot of time. There's a lot of people that are sitting in a successful place and they don't talk about the struggle, but it really helped me become who I am. Yeah. My sophomore year, the summer of my sophomore year in the chemical engineering program, I had a 2.1 GPA, 2.1 GPA. I was struggling mightily and I still remember and anybody that knows me know that I'm 100% open. I'll tell the story. I talked to my mom and I said, mom, you know, I don't think that I'm going to make it. I don't think that I'm going to graduate from the chemical engineering program. This is too hard. And my mom said to me and just just wisdom, are you quitting because it's too hard? Or are you quitting because it's not something that you want to do anymore? And I really pondered on it and she said, because if you're quitting because you don't want to do it anymore, cool. Go ahead and do what you want to do. That's fine. I support anything that you do. If you're quitting because it's too hard, you need to get back on that horse to figure it out. And that's exactly what I did. And I completely turned my grades around and I had a 3.3 in my last 60 hours of the chemical engineering school. So anybody that says that HPCs aren't rigorous, they are. But if you figure it out, you prioritize, you get it together, you can excel. And by being here around people that supported me, that didn't just send me when I struggled, it allowed me to become the man that I am now. So I'm so grateful. And that's the reason I came back from San Diego to graduate school because it's nothing like an HPC or nothing like it. Talk about the competitiveness of this program. So you only have a handful of HPCU grad students that can participate. And the expectation is y'all are from different schools, different HPCUs. We know what kind of school FAMU is like. FAMU don't take L's. That's what they teach all the graduates. We don't lose and we strike, strike, strike again. You know, we know. But did you feel any pressure in the boot camp, in the program itself, like not only am I here to do well for myself, but I'm also here to do well to represent FAMU SBI. I'm also here to represent FAMU as an institution at large. I'm here to represent Orlando. I mean, like what kind of pressure or benefit does it add when you say I'm carrying FAMU on my back in this exclusive program? Yeah. The pressure, you know, when I do everything, I don't really tend to think too much about the pressure on myself. You know, I don't really think about the pressure on myself, but the point that you highlighted and that I'll elaborate on is the pressure or more so the responsibility to bring the next person along and to show an example that these companies can see that there's a lot more of us at FAMU. There's a lot more of us at HBCU that are outstanding scholars, outstanding achievers, and they can do what they need to do in the boardroom and the corporate world, anywhere you put them, they can. So for me, the pressure, I guess you would say, or the responsibility is that I need to do well because I need to be a good representation of where I come from because there's outstanding candidates. And oftentimes, unfortunately, HBCUs don't get the recognition or the opportunities that they should. And it's almost heartbreaking because we have students that are so strong, so powerful, and we're doing so many great things, but we don't get these same opportunities all the time. So for me, my mindset is you're not just doing this for you, like you're saying. You're not just doing it for you. That means you need to be on your P's and Q's. You need to make sure that you do everything the correct way, the right way, because you're representing these outstanding students that are spanning the nation from HBCUs. And then the final thing, man, and we really appreciate your time. You really had some powerful insight. But if there was one piece of advice that you would give to a student who's listening to this and is interested in applying for the TMCF Hennessey's fellow program, what would it be and how would you best explain to them to get something out of this program? This is what you need to do to realize the fullness of this program. Here's what you need to do. Yeah, my piece of advice for somebody that, wow, if they were going through this program, I would say do not let opportunities slip. Do not. Because opportunities such as this don't come around every day. They don't. You're not able to talk to an executive every day. You're not able to have financial assistance every day. Take advantage of the opportunity that you're given. Do not let it slip. Network, network, network. Your network is your network. It is important. Something that we learned while we were in the boot camp and that sticks with me. Relationships appraise and value over time. Powerful relationships appraise and value over time. If you make a relationship, if you form a true relationship, not just, hey, I'm going to talk to you now, a true relationship, as time goes on, that relationship is going to be so much more valuable to you than anything. So don't let an opportunity slip. Do not let a relationship slip. Make sure that you are trying to do everything in your power to get every ounce of what you're given. Because there's somebody that did not get this opportunity. It's unfortunate, but there's somebody that didn't. So recognize that. Think about that. Do not forget it. That would be my advice.