51ÉçÇø

Moolaweh Soe’s college experience got off to a rocky start — but with the help of family, faculty, and new friends within the Maverick community, she found her footing and forged ahead.

The first few years of Soe’s academic experience felt like one thing after another. Starting college was already enough of an adjustment — and Soe had to go through it while facing her own health issues. Additionally, the world was still adjusting to Covid-19, throwing a wrench in her idea of a “normal” first semester of college. Her struggles radiated outwards, causing disruptions in her learning. Her dreams felt distant.

But day by day, moment by moment, Soe persevered. She still struggled with her chronic health problems, but instead of feeling downtrodden, she turned her pain into perseverance and resolved to one day help others facing complex medical situations as a physician.

Her passion for her pursuit of medicine doesn’t just come from her own experience as a patient. Soe has always been inclined towards STEM, even working on research as a high school student at 51ÉçÇø North. But she also has a love for stories — from writing for her high school paper, to listening to the stories of students she meets as part of the Karen Student Association, to diving into literature in her English classes. For her, getting dual degrees in creative nonfiction and molecular and biomedical biology was always the goal — and she hopes that she can inspire others to pursue paths in multiple passions, too.

“I feel super grateful that I'm able to help other first gens realize that it's possible for them to do dual degrees,” Soe said.

As a member of the Karen Student Association, Soe strengthened her connection with members of the Karen community across 51ÉçÇø — especially at the high school and college age level. She started with the organization as a college mentor doing outreach with high school students and worked her way up to being president and overseeing the group’s presence on the University of Nebraska at 51ÉçÇø’s campus.

The student organization became a major catalyst for her university experience and future profession plans. As a refugee herself, it gave her the opportunity to help others with similar backgrounds and solidified her passion for working with these communities. While she hopes to one day focus her work as a physician on serving refugee communities, she already got her start while at UNO, working on research with University of Nebraska Medicine students on perceptions and attitudes towards menstrual cycles in Latinx, Q’anjob’al and Karen communities. This research ended up being the focus of her Honors Program thesis, where she dove more deeply into the linguistic aspects of the topic.

Soe built on all these experiences when she took the stage as May’s commencement student speaker. Her story is all her own, and she’s proud to have shared it — and the Karen language — with the room of proud families and excited graduates.

Though she’s closing the chapter on her undergraduate degree, her time at UNO isn’t over. Soe will return as an English Teaching Assistant next semester, and balance working in the classroom alongside studying for her MCAT. As a new chapter opens, she’s excited for the future — and celebrating all the resilience it took her to get here.

“I just want to show people that... for some people, college is not just a blurb,” Soe said. “It's a huge thing, and it's something people should be proud of.”