{"id":1456,"date":"2015-03-18T17:35:11","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T17:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/?p=1456"},"modified":"2016-01-25T22:55:46","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T22:55:46","slug":"learning-for-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/2015\/03\/18\/learning-for-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning for the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senior Marius Ibuye may have a very different past than many of his fellow Oregon State University Honors College students, but he has never let that get in his way.<\/p>\n

\u201cLife is about hard work,\u201d Marius says. \u201cI\u2019m the one who chooses my path and defines what I become.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2010, Marius and his family moved to Portland from a refugee camp in Tanzania, where his mother and eight siblings had lived for eight years after fleeing from their home country, the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n

After graduating from high school in Portland, Marius enrolled at Portland Community College. He was a student there in the Future Connect program designed to broaden access to education through financial support and mentorship.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good thing for me as an ESL (English as a Second Language) student,\u201d Marius says. \u201cThe classes were slow-paced, and they were able to help me with everything to get me to the point where I needed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IMG_3264_body\"<\/a>Marius knew he wanted to study pharmacy, and after two years at PCC, he was awarded the Ford Family Scholarship and applied to Oregon State and the Honors College, where he enrolled in pre-pharmacy with a minor in health policy management. Marius received a National Science Foundation scholarship for students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, administered through the Honors College, which Marius says lessened his stress about taking care of college financially. In Honors courses, Marius has enjoyed working with other students who are also motivated about their education.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know anything about the Honors College, but advisors at PCC said it was a cool thing,\u201d Marius says. \u201cI really enjoy being a part of the Honors College because it tells me more about me; it\u2019s an identity for me. I don\u2019t like being an average student. I like to know that I am doing something big.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is no stranger to working hard and tackling new challenges. In the refugee camp, many of his peers saw studying as fruitless, but Marius committed much of his time to learning English. He was mostly self-taught, reading English books translated from French. He learned most English grammar rules, but he didn\u2019t have a chance to really speak, listen, and apply the language until he came to the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have a teacher in the camps,\u201d Marius says. \u201cPeople were willing to help us, but they were learning at the same time. I was learning a language that I didn\u2019t have the sound for.\u201d<\/p>\n

His dedicated study of English helped ease his transition to the United States, and he attributes much of his academic success to his early motivation to overcome personal challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t experience the kind of childhood, the kind of life other people my age might experience,\u201d Marius says. \u201cI had less. I used to be sad about it, but now I know it was a training time and a training camp where I was learning to be self-motivated and proactive. We didn\u2019t have money, but we had time. We had to use it for ourselves, to get something bigger out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marius explains that the camp environment made it all too easy to stay complacent. Many spend years in the camps without tangible hope of a new life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know I would end up in the United States,\u201d Marius says. I didn\u2019t know where I was going or where I could end up, and it wasn\u2019t my home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marius will graduate this June, after completing his thesis \u201cThe Effect of Dark Period on Growth Rate of Cyanobacterium, Synechococcus<\/em>,\u201d becoming the first member of his family to hold a college degree. Marius hopes his hard work will encourage others to pursue similar goals. Two of his younger siblings are now enrolled in college.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad that I am an inspiration for them,\u201d Marius says. \u201cI\u2019m glad to be there to show them that you have to earn what you want. You have to fight for it, even though it might not be easy. I don\u2019t see myself as a quitter; I\u2019ll fight for what I want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finishing his degree is just the beginning for Marius. He plans to continue his education in pharmacy school and hopes to impact community health in a far-reaching and interactive way. Living in Portland, Marius was a voting member of the Multnomah Youth Commission and worked for the City of Portland in the Youth Planning Program, which aims to bring the youth voice to city planning discussions. That job sparked an awareness of the impact of public policy on community well-being and has directed his interests toward pharmacy and health policy management.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love to interact with people, and I like to serve others,\u201d Marius says. \u201cI learned that to be a leader you have to learn how to serve others. It\u2019s not about the money, it\u2019s about being there for people. I like being part of a team working to make change and working to increase everyone\u2019s quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marius hopes his background will help him connect with a diverse array of people and serve communities in need of a voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am able to look at different cultures and understand people from different backgrounds,\u201d Marius says. \u201cI understand being outside of America, it\u2019s very different. Maybe I can help because I know how to serve those people who weren\u2019t raised here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going forward, Marius believes in finding new ways to help people and constantly asking the question, \u201cHow do we make the health of people better?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in being there for people,\u201d Marius says. \u201cI love giving hope\u2026. In a refugee camp, there is no hope at all, but I believed something great would happen in my future. Some people thought I was crazy, but that\u2019s something I appreciate about myself now. Now it is paying off.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Emma-Kate Schaake<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senior Marius Ibuye may have a very different past than many of his fellow Oregon State University Honors College students, but he has never let that get in his way. \u201cLife is about hard work,\u201d Marius says. \u201cI\u2019m the one who chooses my path and defines what I become.\u201d In 2010, Marius and his family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6614,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1205,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1456"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1558,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions\/1558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}