RoDina Williams ’10 accomplished plenty by age 27. With a kinesiology degree and six years experience at Loyola Center for Health and Fitness, she was on track to a bright career—just not the one she wanted.
Hoping to find a job she loved, she enrolled at Illinois State in 2008 to study medical laboratory science. Focusing on class work was easier. Finances, however, were not. Since she was getting a second bachelor’s, she didn’t qualify for federal grants.
“I had to come up with some creative ways to pay for tuition, and scholarships helped a lot,” said Williams, who received the Olamide Adeyooye Scholarship, established in memory of a medical laboratory science student murdered in 2005.
She wants Adeyooye’s family to know she “will be the best med tech I can be in memory of their daughter and I take the job seriously. I keep in mind that behind every lab result there’s someone waiting to know what’s wrong with them.”
Thanks to her scholarship, Williams was able to graduate and get a job in the University of Illinois Medical Center microbiology lab, where she is reaping the rewards of her second degree.
You can make a difference by providing financial support to students. Make a contribution online at IllinoisState.edu/giving, call (309) 438-8041, or send an email to jdhutch@IllinoisState.edu.
