Amy Azania Omondi

UWC attended: United World College of South East Asia (Singapore)
Class Year: Class of 2016

I was an explorer since childhood; born in Nakuru, a city in the Rift Valley, and bred in Central province and Nyanza province. This also gave me a taste of the different cultures Kenya had to offer. However, because there are 42 tribes in Kenya, I was not fulfilled by the very few cultures I had been exposed to in my childhood. I thus used school as a medium to discover the different cultures that my country is blessed with. My love and appreciation of our differences in society explains why I jumped at an opportunity to apply to United World College when I heard about it from my best friend. One of the best things about being at United World College of South East Asia was that I was constantly surrounded by people who were from all over the world: I could sit and hear people speaking Chinese on my left, French on my right and people behind me would be speaking Siswati – it was nothing but amazing.

I looked at many schools and after researching at length about Lewis & Clark, I felt that the environment would allow me to thrive both as the person I am and as a student. I fell in love with Lewis & Clark because of it’s location – one can access both the snowy mountains and the sandy beaches. I fell even deeper in love when I found out that I could easily double major in two of my favorites areas: Chemistry, a fascination of mine since primary school, and International Relations, a rising passion of mine.

My dream since I was a little girl was to somehow, no matter how little, contribute to helping the hunger situation in Nothern Kenya and Somalia. This dream came to life when I was in UWCSEA and I was able to raise funds and send them to ”˜Action Against Hunger’ (ACF), a French NGO helping in hunger relief in the region. Even better, I got a chance to spread awareness in the school about the dire situation in these regions.

At Lewis & Clark, other than graduating with a degree to my name, I hope to continue to bring most of my dreams to reality and, furthermore, I hope that I can help some people make their dreams into reality. Other than being a lover of culture, I adore sports, especially football – which I now have to call soccer – and I want to continue this at Lewis & Clark. I am also looking forward to being able to go out and explore the beautiful nature that surrounds Oregon.