HCC graduate heads to Ivy League university on full scholarship
Sep 18, 2017
Houston Community College (HCC) graduate Elias Karim Farhat did not list Yale University as his top choice for college – he dreamed of going to Columbia University. He applied to Columbia and got accepted for fall 2016, but had to defer his admission for a year because the financial aid package offered to him couldn’t meet all his needs. “It’s exciting to be accepted to the school you’ve always wanted to go to and also heartbreaking to know you can’t afford it,” Elias says. “The financial aid package was only $15,000 out of $50,000 that I needed for my tuition.”
Farhat then applied to Yale University’s Eli Whitney Student Program. The program, created in 1982, chooses two to nine non-traditional students annually who have high academic potential but had their education interrupted for five or more years. These students enrich Yale University through their life experiences, sense of purpose and character. Farhat found renewed excitement when he got accepted into the program and Yale offered a scholarship that would cover his tuition.
“I will be majoring in economics and mathematics at Yale, after receiving a full scholarship,” Farhat says. “I also plan on taking some classes in ethics, politics and human rights, with aspirations to study International Law in the future.”
Farhat and his family migrated out of war-torn Lebanon after experiencing forced displacements, wars and invasions. In 2012, they settled in Houston, where Farhat found employment. He saved the money he earned and invested it into his education when he could finally focus on this dream.
“I had to overcome a lot of hardships throughout the years while pursuing my dream at HCC,” he says. “I worked the night shift for three years and attend classes in the morning. I studied English as a second language to overcome the language barrier in addition to the many tests that I took, including my General Education Diploma (GED).”
Farhat chose HCC because of the low tuition, the outstanding quality of the education and low student-to-professor ratio. While at HCC he majored in petroleum engineering and became part of the HCC-Texas A&M Engineering Academy in the fall of 2015. He became a member of the Student Honor Society, Phi Theta Kappa, and graduated with his associates degree maintaining a 4.0 grade-point-average.
To learn more about the HCC and Texas A&M Engineering Academy, visit: hccs.edu/futureaggieengineer.