Possesion by Jahsean

Possesion by Jahsean - January 2026 Scholarship Essay

The ball rolled around the rim of the basket, and I hit the floor, eyes down, knees bent, heart racing. In basketball, possession is paramount. Don’t you get the loose ball? The game isn’t yours. I’ve translated that strength into life with everything; fight for possession of my future.
At ten, my mom and I moved through hotel stays with just the clothes on our backs. I learned how to read the essentials and leave the fluff behind. Rebound. I learned to box out volatility but leap to catch the momentum of my family. At thirteen, when my mom got breast cancer, I organized her medicine for her, translating terms into something digestible. I still translate; so much critically important material medically, financially, and academically, is still undigested by those who need it most.
But the moment I discovered my true strengthwase at sixteen. Gas light on E, phone on 1%, knocking on doors with a flyer for my new car detailing business. 49 rejections until Pastor Moss opened his door. I didn’t pitch. I told the truth. I needed $120 to keep my mom and me afloat. He saw something in me. “Keep going, young man,” he said. He doubled my rate while I worked and then doubled it again.
It wasn’t just money; it was the moment I found systems thinking. I wasn’t washing cars, I was designing a system. Design the system. Fail, then iterate. The same framework applied to all of my failures: homelessness, chronic mono, and my mom’s underpaid job. Diagnose the system breakdown. Build the system solution. Test it. Iterate.
Now, as a dual-enrolled student with 36 credit hours at Clayton State University with a 4.0 GPA, while maintaining a 4.125 weighted and 3.6 unweighted GPA at Elite Scholars Academy, this strength has completely shifted my trajectory. Dual enrollment forced me to master systems thinking at an accelerated pace. Balancing college course loads with the requirements of high school, I had to optimize my time like never before; Class schedules. Exam schedules. Assignment schedules. The coursework at Clayton State formalized this unintentional training. My information systems course taught me that information systems aren’t tech; it’s translating complexity into a system that makes it digestible for the people who need it most. My goal? GSU’s MS in Information Systems, then a tech startup to make critical information digestible for ALL families.
That moment on Pastor Moss’s porch showed me my strength wasn’t just resilience, but seeing systems in the chaos. Where others saw rejection, I saw process improvement. Where others saw poverty, I saw a market. Chronic illness? A system for managing energy output vs calories in. Family crisis? Design the information flow. Dual enrollment? Reinvent the academic system for maximum efficiency.
This strength informs every decision I make today. I started my school’s Financial Literacy Club because I saw the system failing students. I completed 15 LinkedIn certifications in business and crypto because I see systems that compound over time. I took on dual enrollment not to inflate my transcript but because I saw a system; fast track college learning while deepening high school requirements. Every “loose ball” moment in my life, from mono relapses, to business failures to family instability, has become an opportunity to optimize the system.
Systems thinking transformed the game from survival to strategy. It turned the reaction into a redesign. Pastor Moss didn’t just pay me, he gave me an unfair advantage; a lens to see structure in chaos and design solutions where others see problems. That’s the strength I’m bringing to dual enrollment and my perfect college GPA as I build a future for myself in the field of information systems. The game has just begun.