School: Bloomsburg University ‘21
Degree: Environment Geographical and Geological Sciences
Exp. Grad Year: 2021
How did you hear about the RISE Scholarship Program?
In a Senior Seminar class in high school. We were going over scholarships and our counselor presented it to us.
What is something you’ve accomplished recently (personally or in your education) that you’re proud of?
I guess I could say… getting through my first semester while being a full time athlete [Khalil plays football]. I jumped into that with not much support, like I had support, but more I mean, surviving that and being good enough. I’ve seen that other people have done it but just knowing that if its easy then it’s not worth doing, obviously it was tough, but I always kept that mindset that it’s going to pay off, those study hours, the extra reading, office hours, just stuff like that.
What was your plan of attack for completing the program?
My plan was to take care of the financial literacy first and to save money from my job lifeguarding. Every paycheck I tried to put aside at least $100.
What is something you learned from doing the financial literacy requirement of the program?
I learned a lot about banking that I didn’t know before. I didn’t know about the different types of accounts. If I hadn’t done those classes I would have just opened an account not knowing there are different types of fees banks can hit you with and different interest rates for savings accounts.
What is something that you hope to change about the world?
I feel like positivity is power. When people are more positive towards one another I feel like they can get so much done. Today it feels like we’re going backwards, I think we could be way more productive if being positive was a priority. I want to study hydrology. With that, I pretty much just want to purify water. I want to be able to detect the levels of poison in water in low income areas so I can change that. The richest areas get the cleanest water. In cities like Philly, not everyone is getting clean water. I want to make sure everyone is getting a fair share of clean water.
