STORY BY LILY CAFFREY-LEVIINE
ILLUSTRATION BY LAUREN VICENZI
We all have one, have had one, or have been told we have one. Our “thing.” The one trait or aspect of our lives that seemingly defines us whether we chose it or not. Some of us try to break away from this and some of us bask in it. We may be athletes, musicians, readers. But some—rather, very few—are the youngest of eight children. Even fewer are black women in the computer science field.
Tori is the youngest of eight from Yonkers, N.Y. As a child, Tori Cameron often found herself grouped together with her two older sisters as the youngest of the Cameron girls; it was always “Mariah, Naomi, and Tori,” or “the girls” as they are affectionately known. Growing up meant matching outfits to church and being their own little “team.” Come Tori’s sophomore year of high school, “the girls” would be splitting up—geographically, that is.
Mariah was off at college, with Naomi not far behind: “Where does that put me?” Tori felt that she was almost missing a part of herself. However, she never seems to stray too far from optimism. She sighs hopefully, “You know, you miss your sisters, but there's also more for you to learn about yourself.”
Finding a sense of identity was a struggle for Tori. Student government was her sister’s thing, acting and reading belonged to her other sisters. What box did Tori fit into?
It was the Hudson River Museum where she worked through high school where she fell in love with river science. It was planning a birthday trip to visit one of her sisters where she fell in love with the idea of working in tech. And it was working at an amusement park over the summer where she didn’t have to mention that she was the youngest of eight; people didn’t necessarily view her that way. “You don’t talk like the youngest… you’re really responsible,” people would tell her.
“This is it! I found it! I'm the responsible one!”
She exclaimed with excitement and relief that she found her “thing.” But it’s more than clear in hearing about her numerous involvements that Tori doesn’t have simply one “thing.”
Now, on the surface, her professional resume reads impressively: Goldman Sachs tech scholar, Information Systems and Computer Science major, board member of the student government’s election commission, member of the Black Student Union, yogi, orientation leader, a summer intern at Fidelity Investments, and future Technical Client Advisor. Her personal resume—while different, more intimate and specific to Tori—exudes another wide range of qualities that one’s identity could typically be defined by: youngest of eight siblings, female, African American, young.
“I'm clearly this African American female in a tech field, and [at] times you walk in a room and you notice it,” Tori explained. “When shaping my identity […] I chose to do what mattered to me no matter what. I couldn't let something like that stop me.” Enter: Marist College.
Cruising up the Taconic State Parkway four years ago, Tori sat in the passenger seat as her mom drove to Marist’s October open house — peak fall foliage. Through the winding road between the mess of colorful trees, a typical pre-college mother-daughter conversation transpired: make sure you’re happy where you decide to go, go somewhere you feel comfortable, know that you belong there, be able to see yourself there.
Somewhere in between the tours and information sessions, Tori stood outside of the Hancock Center—a place she now knows all too well—with her mother. “I could see you here,” she remembered her mom saying.
Tori burst into tears.
“It’s really, really, funny,” she covered her mouth, laughing almost uncontrollably, as she reflected nearly five years later. In a seemingly kismet moment, a combination of her mother’s words, the “magic” they have in admissions, the bright blue sky, absinthe green grass, and majestic fall foliage, revealed to her how much she could see herself here.
She knows the easier option may have been to go to a college closer to the city or an HBCU. But what mattered to Tori was not what was easy. What mattered was her love of technology and programming; Marist was the place to pursue that— as well as the many other passions she would find along the way.
Her love of the Hudson Valley has been palpable, extending to her academic endeavors; her capping project was for the Shawangunk Scenic Byway. However, after developing successful programming for Fidelity Investments in North Carolina, Tori fell in love with another area. She plans to move there after commencement, having accepted a position in the Lenovo Advanced Sales Rotation.
For now, Tori Cameron sits on a white couch in a clear hallway in the Murray Student Center. It overlooks the dining hall, and has served as her passageway from her meetings in peak election season, to classes later in the day, to several more meetings at night—she’s “always doing things.”
“I don't think I ever found my one thing,” she said. “I found a lot of things that mattered to me.”
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