For Bryson Lee, despite being an out-of-state student, coming to NC State University feels like coming home.
Lee, who will be a first-year student, was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. His oldest sister went to NC State and won two national championships on the cheerleading squad. His grandparents still live in the area.
Since 2021, Lee has lived in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where his family now owns a hay farm. He considered Clemson, the University of South Carolina and Virginia Tech, but when it came time to make a choice, he knew where he wanted to be.
“[NC State] had the best engineering program, the best community, the best people,” he said. “After I’d visited for the first time, it felt like I already had a community.”
At NC State, Lee plans to study civil engineering. Growing up, he was interested in construction. One of his favorite things to do with his dad was going to open houses to check out the building’s design.
For a while, he considered architecture.
“I realized recently that engineering is more my path because it allows you to do a lot more and offers more avenues to take,” he said. “I still am not really sure what I want to do, but I know that designing and building is definitely part of that.”
Connecting with others to navigate big changes
Moving from the suburbs to a more rural area was a big change for Lee. He likes the land and riding UTVs and ATVs, and he sometimes helps with the farm.
But it wasn’t always an easy adjustment, and he anticipates that moving back to Raleigh will be challenging at times, too.
“Going from Rock Hill, South Carolina, back to Raleigh, is probably another big change,” he said. “And going from high school to college is a big change in itself.”
To help get acclimated after the move, Lee stayed busy. He made the soccer, football and track and field teams. He joined and eventually anchored the school’s morning broadcast, which helped him become more comfortable with public speaking and with talking on camera. And he spent time on a hobby he picked up during the early months of the pandemic — cake baking and decorating.
While he says he’s not an extrovert, Lee is also good at talking to people, which has helped make these big adjustments easier on him.
“I believe in that 100%, that no matter who you talk to, you’ll always find a connection with them,” he said. “There’s always something in your life that connects with something in their life.”
In late June, Lee attended the Summer Exploration Experience camp at NC State, which is put on annually by the College of Engineering’s Women and Minority Engineering Programs. He learned more about his upcoming classes, navigated campus and met people who will be in his classes this fall.
“When I moved to Rock Hill, a lot of my classes were predominantly white, so this program [allowed] me to meet and be around other African Americans and minorities that I haven’t gotten a chance to be around and to learn from,” he said.
That’s what Lee is most excited about when he starts at NC State: meeting new people, with different viewpoints and life stories, and learning from and connecting with them.
But he’s also looking forward to returning to the place where he was raised. Like many Raleigh natives, he wants to get his go-to order at Goodberry’s (a scoop of vanilla custard in a cup). He’s glad to be closer to his grandparents.
And he’ll be catching up with elementary and middle school friends from North Carolina.
“One of my friends from kindergarten, he was my best friend of all time, and then I moved schools in elementary school,” he said. “We are still in touch with each other, and we’re both about to go to NC State, after being at different schools since the third grade. But it’s crazy, how life can bring you right back together.”
