Student Spotlight
ARC Beaver Theint Theint Thu has been selected as one of only 15 students to receive Phi Theta Kappa’s 2024 Hites Transfer Scholarship, the Society’s most prestigious and largest scholarship! Hites Scholars are selected based on outstanding academic achievement, leadership, and engagement in college and community activities. The selections are made by a panel of independent judges from among 3,000 national applicants.
Theint came to the United States in December of 2021 from Myanmar(Burma) following the military coup earlier that year. She had been planning to start medical school in Myanmar until the pandemic closed local universities in 2020 and still plans to pursue her education in the STEM fields. Theint has applied to UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC San Diego, and several private universities where she plans to major in Molecular and Cellular Biology while also planning to explore bioengineering.
After starting at ARC in 2022, Theint has worked as a tutor at the MESA and Math Learning Center, where she gets to help students, many of whose stories and struggles reflect her own. Her time at ARC has been filled with support and encouragement.
“ARC has been a refuge for me. I have received so much love and support from the community that I did not feel out of place even though I had to restart everything again from the ground up. My professors have been really supportive – in class with lectures or out of class with recommendation letters. Supervisors I met through my on-campus jobs have been amazing – always understanding and accommodating that we were students before we were employees. And, I have made genuine friendships which I hope to carry on even if we are no longer bound by ARC. Long story short, I can confidently say that I would not be where I am today without the support from each person I have met to this day!”
In addition to school, work, and other commitments, Theint has been an active part of the ARC AMSA club. AMSA received an Innovation Grant from the Office of Philanthropy this year to support a free CPR certification event. The event has already reached capacity and will proactively make our campus and communities safer.
Congratulations, Theint!
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