Martha Childress is a fourth-year management student from Greenville, S.C. In October 2013, Martha was struck and paralyzed below the waist by a stray bullet in the Five Points neighborhood of Columbia. She returned to the USC campus for the fall 2014 semester and worked with USC President Harris Pastides to make Five Points safer for students.
Four years. 1,460 days. 35,040 hours. That’s how much time I’ve devoted to my college experience at South Carolina. There were times I thought I would never make it to this moment. The self-doubt consumed me, people’s perceptions about my own limitations flooded my mind and I was broken. I’ve experienced the lowest of lows while here. Those moments you swear you’ll never come back from and the ones that truly break you at your core. But I’ve also found such joy while here that I didn’t think was possible. Those moments when you laugh until your stomach hurts, and meet eyes with someone that you know you really connect with.
We spend four years of our lives in college, tasting independence for the first time and learning to rely on ourselves. But what happens next? What happens after we leave our beloved playground and have to enter the dreaded “real world?” I know that regardless of what life throws at me after I leave USC, I'm ready for it. There’s not a better place to prepare you for the unexpected than this university. We’ve seen tragedies on campus and throughout the Columbia community in the past four years. We’ve lost members of our Gamecock family and seen homes torn apart. But we rose above it. This university rose above the heartache and came together to make beautiful things happen.
I think that’s a true testament to what it means to be a Gamecock. That spirit is something that I will carry with me as I leave and begin my new journey. I have no idea where it will take me, but I’m pretty sure I’m ready for anything. Actually, I’m damn sure I am. The University of South Carolina has given me the courage to go forth and conquer anything in my way.
Thank you, USC, and Forever to Thee.