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Hello, my name is Adrea Gladney, a former SHIELD mentee. I attended the program a number of years ago and have had the pleasure of watching it further grow and develop, impacting the lives of many youth and truly becoming all it is intended to be. Mentoring is truly necessary as I believe that you become what you behold. The influences on your life, especially at a young age have a great impact on the person you will become. Thinking back to the time when I was a mentee of this program I image somewhat of the same individual that I am today, but much shorter much cuter and way more sassy. I had the things I needed inside of me, but I just didn’t realize it yet. I took some shaping and empowering to unlock those things. The program helped shaped my development as a leader and gave me a great since of confidence. Essentially it was a part of the foundation upon which I could establish my goals while also enabling me to achieve them and that is something I will always be grateful for.
No longer a young mentee, I now attend The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (Go NIners!!) as a sophomore double-majoring in business administration and psychology. Upon graduating I plan to gain my MBA (masters in business administration) with a concentration in human resource management and later obtain a Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology. These are all fancy terms for saying that I like to study people and their decision making particularly as it relates to the work environment.
I am very proud of my academic achievement, but it would be foolish of me to attribute all the praise to myself. First of course it is God through me that allows me to maintain my academic excellence, and it is also due to the influences of the people in my life that taught me the importance of having a good work ethic and instilling the work hard play hard mentality in me. So you see everything leads back to influences. Because I have been so blessed to have great influences and mentors in my life, I aspire to inspire others around me and to help them reach their success as well, following the motto to lift as I climb.