Vasanth Mohan, a rising junior at Harris-Stowe State University (HSSU), is one of 30 students who will participate in a three-day summit that includes a variety of professional development opportunities July 21-23. For the past five years, Anheuser-Busch has brought together some of the brightest college students as part of the company’s Legends of the Crown Leadership Symposium. The program awards exceptional student leaders attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) with $5,000 scholarships and provides leadership and career coaching.
Mohan is a transfer student from Miami-Dade College in Miami, where he completed his Associates degree in 2014. He worked for Microsoft, Sunnyvale for a year and then decided to enroll at Harris-Stowe to finish his education. He is majoring in Computer Science and Information Technology and anticipating a Spring 2017 graduation.
“I belong to a middle-class family and everyone works really hard. This scholarship will allow me to graduate faster and achieve my career goals,” Mohan said. “I am grateful to Anheuser-Busch, Harris-Stowe State University and (Director of HSSU’s Career Center) Dr. LaTonia Collins Smith for helping my endeavors come to fruition.”
The students will engage in workshops and interviews with Anheuser-Busch executives to prepare to enter the job market. They will also participate in a community service project by sharing their college experience with College Bound high school students.
Mohan is an aircraft enthusiast who learned to fly when he was 15. He currently holds an FAA Commercial Pilots License with instructor endorsement. He plans to use his Information Technology degree professionally, but teach flying to budding aviators in his free time. His dream is to assist his father in operating an aviation training and testing facility in India.
Students like Mohan, who transferred to Harris-Stowe from community college, are not counted among the university’s graduation rate as reported by the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Because of the way the university’s graduation data are calculated – reporting six-year graduation rates for first-time, full-time freshmen only – the university is penalized with an official graduation rate that is deceptively low and does not reflect the actual number of graduates.
This post originally appeared on HSSU.edu.
