Ja’Mel Reed is the kind of student who is determined to succeed. But, like many young people, he didn’t have his heart set on a specific career when he arrived at the University of Virginia, so he decided to try both pre-law and pre-medicine.
He put pressure on himself for his family: “In my head, the epitome of success would be becoming a lawyer or a doctor. I put that pressure on myself all of my life,” Reed said.
Reed grew up in a rural area of Virginia; Middlesex County, on Rappahannock River, is old – founded in the 1600s. His father’s family has been there since their ancestors were enslaved, he said. Reed’s mother came from California, and the couple met smack-dab in the middle of the U.S. – in Kansas – before moving east.
Adjusting to University life was harder than he thought it would be, said Reed, a Ridley Scholar. He was going to major in politics and biology, but after the first semester, dropped politics.
“I learned more about myself, and knew I had to make a choice,” he said.
Then, in his second year, he experienced something that made him “evaluate what he wanted to do with his life, who he wanted to be, what he wanted to study and be passionate about,” he said.
His close friend, Rehan Baddeliyanage, died on a spring break trip in 2019. Reed and another friend, Eleanor Thompson, talked about him on stage at UVA’s third “Double Take” storytelling event that fall. The previous year, Baddeliyanage had participated and talked about another student and friend who had died, John Paul Popovich.
