Meheret
“The Honors 100 instructor… made me realize that being different could actually work to my advantage.”
About Meheret
- Highline GPA: 3.9 GPA
- Transferred to: Whitman College
- Masters at University of Washington
- Major: Psychology, Global Health
- Graduation from HCC: Spring 2005
- Financial Aid: Diversity Scholarship from Whitman (“free ride”)
- Of Note: Ethiopian immigrant abandoned by her birth family who earned US citizenship after HCC graduation at age 18
Meheret on the Honors Program
How much do you know about Ethiopia? Not much? Well, I didn’t know much about the United States when I arrived in Seattle from Ethiopia at age ten. But today, even though it still takes effort, I can walk between my two worlds, being a successful American college and graduate student, and then speaking Amharic and observing Ethiopian customs at home with my grandmother.
I’m an immigrant from Ethiopia who, as a junior in high school, decided to go to Highline Community College through the “Running Start Program.” Once I got to the college, I learned that with proper planning and with help from the honors program advisor at Highline, my family, and the Upward Bound advisors I could earn my AA degree and my high school diploma in spring of 2005.
The best thing that happened to me in college, besides setting better goals, was discovering the Highline Honors Scholar Program and the Honors 100 course. The Honors 100 instructor made me realize that being different could actually work to my advantage. With the support of a generous diversity scholarship, I enrolled at Whitman College fall of 2005. Each summer there I earned research awards and managed to spend two of the summers in my homeland of Ethiopia. In spring of 2008 I graduated with Honors from Whitman with a major in psychology and minors in sociology and biology.
During the 2009-2010 school year, I worked as a Health Educator with City Year in the AmeriCorps program. As a member of the City Year HOPE team, I taught a CDC approved HIV/AIDS prevention curriculum to middle and high school students in Washington DC’s Public Schools, also serving as an HIV testing coordinator intern at Metro Teen AIDS, a community health organization dedicated to supporting young people in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
During summer 2010 I worked as a Student Assistant in the Global Health Department at the University of Washington. Then, in the fall of 2010 I began work on my Masters of Public Health degree in Leadership, Policy and Management, supported by a University of Washington Top Scholar Award.