Tagged: ODI Graduation

The first-generation experience of students persevering toward graduation often includes obstacles. Young Scholar Brian Finley, Aalissia Thomas, Sarah Al-Hashemi, and Say Yes Scholar Navi Draper share their experiences and left words of wisdom for future graduates in this Lantern article.

Read the full first-gen article.

Hamidou Sy always knew he wanted to be a civil engineer, even before he understood what engineering was. As a child growing up in Mauritania in West Africa, Sy saw the impact of a lack of engineering firsthand.

“Whenever we would travel from province to province, state to state, we would see terrible accidents on the roadway. We would see bad infrastructure, inadequate water resources,” Sy recalled. “That was a call to action for me.”

When Luis Mercado walks across the Schottenstein Center stage to get his diploma this December, it will be the final steps in a journey he worried he might never finish.

Mercado came to The Ohio State University as a first-year student in 2018, drawn by the support and opportunities provided by the Young Scholars Program (YSP), which he joined as a sixth grader growing up in South Lorain. That support took on a whole new meaning three years later, however, when Mercado received life-changing news: cancer.

Telling her classmates to "trade fear for hope," the first Black woman to get a doctorate in dance studies from The Ohio State University spoke at the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) graduation ceremony on Dec. 14.

"I hope we will lead with love and create beyond our most wildest dreams," Alesondra "Alex" Christmas told her fellow graduates and their friends and family piled into the Ohio Union's Great Hall Meeting Room. "Let your hopes be fierce and unwavering."