Class of 2024: First-gen student Deshawn Murchison graduates debt-free, thanks to Presidential Scholarship Initiative

Name: Deshawn Murchison

College: Architecture, Arts, and Design

Major: Landscape architecture

Hometown: Richmond

Favorite Hokie memory: Hanging out for hours with friends in the Ujima living-learning community. “That sense of community I felt while I was living on campus is something I won't forget.”

Maybe it was something he saw on TV. A glamorous university campus in a movie. Whatever made Deshawn Murchison think about college as an elementary schooler, he was certain he wanted to go. “I was always driven toward education, and I just knew that college was a place I wanted to be,” he said. “It felt like my only option in a way. It was a safe road I knew that I could take to be successful.”

It was a road that no one in his family had taken. The fifth of six children raised by a single mother, Murchison is also the first to attend a four-year university. This spring, he’ll be the first to graduate, with a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from the College of Architecture, Arts, and Design.

The road had its challenges, though.

Virginia Tech Advantage

A week at the Black College Institute steered him toward wanting to attend Virginia Tech, but once he was accepted, the initial $400 enrollment fee threw him for a loop. Where would he get the money? If he couldn’t come up with that, how would he afford tuition?

Then he got the email that changed his life: a notice that he’d received a four-year scholarship from the Presidential Scholarship Initiative (PSI), now part of Virginia Tech Advantage, the university's commitment to offer a broad educational experience to undergraduate students from Virginia who have demonstrated financial need.

The award covered all expenses, from tuition and fees to room and board. “That was the happiest day of my life,” Murchison said.

Not only has the scholarship kept him from taking on student loan debt, it’s “opened so many doors for me. PSI really allowed me to focus on what was important.”

Outside class

For instance, since 2020, he’s been the president of the Cultural Dance Crew, a student group that choreographs and performs hip-hop and other dances.

He was also a Yates Scholar for the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, helping recruit diverse students to Virginia Tech. One high schooler who saw him speak later ran into him on campus. “It was that full circle moment, seeing that that my impact actually helped someone on their decision,” Murchison said.

A hands-on educational experience

From knowing hardly anything about landscape architecture, Murchison has embraced a field that has “let me see the world differently.” He’s learned to identify trees and flowers, to beeline across campus to investigate an interesting bit of green, and to digest feedback from regular critiques.

“I've always really enjoyed working with Deshawn because he's just so upbeat,” said Assistant Professor Jenn Thomas. “He's very tenacious because even when he's had times where he's struggling with stuff, he gets feedback, he thinks about it, and then he just keeps on going.”

Thomas was Murchison’s advisor for his senior landscape architecture project, a design of a 1,200-acre former plantation across the James River from Richmond. In Murchison’s approach, a memorial garden reminds visitors of the enslaved people who lived there, while a field of corn speaks to the Indigenous people who once worked the land.

“It's challenging because it can be seen as a touchy subject with such complex and sensitive histories,” said Murchison. “But at the end of the day, a landscape architect is a public servant. We're meant to help make the world better.”

Last summer, as an intern with Henrico County's Department of Parks and Recreation, Murchison designed a new pickleball complex, taking it from a paper sketch to full-size construction documents in AutoCAD — skills he learned in his landscape architecture classes.

A few months later, he learned that the complex would be built. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I have a project that’s going to be built in real life,’” Murchison said. “It blew me away.”

It’s a feeling he can’t wait to have again and again throughout his career.