Meet Alexis, an Honors Scholar student who hopes to join the medical field after completing school.
To celebrate Black History Month, Schoolcraft College will highlight the stories of Black students, faculty, staff and administrators and what Black History Month means to them. Check back every week this month for stories on the Black experience here at Schoolcraft College.
Alexis Aguwa isn’t afraid to share her Nigerian heritage.
Aguwa, an Honors Scholars student and laboratory assistant at Schoolcraft College, said her culture is her pride, identity and what defines her.
“To be an unapologetically black emerging scholar here at Schoolcraft College means a lot to me. It’s like spreading and expressing my culture out to the world. The world must know my culture because as a Nigerian anywhere I go, I find people just like me who know their roots and who they truly are.”
She credits her mother as one of her most influential voices in her life. She said her mother has helped her to be able to express herself authentically without shame and no regret toward her culture.
The drive Aguwa has to succeed – she plans on earning her associate degree in nursing before earning a BSN and eventually become a doctor – is best summarized in one of her favorite quotes, which comes from Theodore Roosevelt: “Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty. No kind of life is worth leading if it is always an easy life.”
Aguwa desires to help those in need after seeing the great care given to her father during his battle with cancer.
“I want to take care of others and treat patients who are in critical conditions, bringing back hope and putting a smile on their faces the same may the medical team did for my father,” she said.
In addition to listening to music, dancing and watching her favorite football club (Real Madrid), Aguwa includes studying as one of her favorite hobbies. “My community college experience has helped shaped me in becoming the person that I am today,” she said.