“Just get up!” is what Meklit would say to herself if she ever encountered failing. She is a determined Georgia State University sophomore who I had the pleasure of interviewing on January 23rd, 2022. She knows what hard work looks like and won’t stop until she gets what she wants. So, when she had to wait a year to start college, she didn’t hesitate to find a way to learn in that gap year.
Meklit is a first-generation college student who immigrated here from Ethiopia after graduating from high school, Fountain of Knowledge, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. If you think navigating high school was hard here in the United States, try learning at a school with less resources and made to take all the harder classes at once. That sounds difficult to me but Meklit’s ambition and the admiration she has for her entrepreneur parents gave her the strength and motivation to pull through the chaos of high school. Even though Meklit knew she wanted to go to college after high school she had to wait one year because of COVID. Instead of relaxing she enrolled in Parsons School of Design in New York City and earned a Fashion Illustration Certificate in 2020.
She has always been excited about fashion ever since she was a kid playing with Babies. That creativity is what propelled her to go to New York before choosing to come to Georgia State University. Now she is channeling her artistry into a new direction by majoring in Computer Science. While being a creative and a woman in a field of science can be difficult, Meklit is using her ambition to pursue her vision of building web sites and apps that focus on fashion. Choosing what school to building her vision wasn’t one that was taken lightly.
Georgia State University wasn’t Meklit’s only option to go to college, she also got into a school in Canada. Picking a college and country to live in is a big decision at any age but Meklit chose to be in an area where she had the most family. For Meklit, family is a big motivator and support system that will help her succeed in college. Even her oldest sister, Nadi, is in her senior year as an electrical engineering student and one of the biggest people in her life that helps fuel her drive. When Meklit is feeling defeated and out of energy she turns to Tekla, her best friend and hype woman. They are both in college so sharing the struggle of figuring out tuition and why they must take classes that don’t pertain to their major is a bonding experience for them.
While Meklit doesn’t know where she would be without her support network, the video “Beliefs that make you Fail…or Succeed” shown in her Composition II class, stuck with her. “For every distraction you have, you reduce the amount you learn, increase the time it takes to understand the material and increase the chance for a bad grade,” says Dr. Stephen Chew. For someone that has a lot of drive to succeed, often exhaustion kicks in, and she feels like taking a break. Learning about what she shouldn’t do will allow her to use her limited time more wisely.
Being a college student is stressful. Being in a new state and country can be disorienting. Having to juggle a job, studying, and trying to find personal time can be overwhelming, but with Meklit’s ambition and creativity, she will find ways to overcome her exhaustion.
Take by Meklit on her 19th birthday.
Work Cited
- Meklit Abera, Pair interview transcript, January 2022
- Steven C, PhD; Beliefs that makes you fail or succeed, Samford University, AL