Hammond High School graduate Mohamed Elhassan is “going places.”
Born in Sudan and raised in Howard County, he will be the first in his family to attend college in the United States.
Planning to major in symbolic systems, an interdisciplinary program combining computer science, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, psychology and statistics, he will be heading westward to attend Stanford University in the fall.
Thinking back on his four years in high school, he credits his teachers for preparing him.
“From ninth grade, there were teachers and staff members who were there who were willing to put in the effort for you,” he said. “They motivate you to start taking initiative academically ... and all around I felt it was just a really supportive community.”
Prior to high school, Elhassan said he had an interest in mathematics and science, however he lacked the confidence to pursue them.
His high school teachers encouraged him to take higher level courses, including calculus, chemistry, differential equations and discrete mathematics.
“I give all [the credit] to those teachers who motivated me and gave me the confidence I needed to actually pursue the subjects that I really do find interesting,” he said. “I think it’s the most important thing for every student to have that support and have that extra push because I know that’s what helped me the most.”
Callie Sibrian, a chemistry teacher at Hammond, who taught Elhassan during his junior year and wrote him a letter of recommendation for his application to Stanford, described him as “artistic,” “creative” and “thoughtful.”
“[Mohamed] just thinks through things and looks at things through a different lens,” she said. “He is very artistic and very creative, and he uses that creative piece to look at science, so he always has these really deep questions about why things are happening.”
Besides pushing him to excel in mathematics and science, Elhassan said his teachers also encouraged him to explore his interest in art.
During his junior year, he drew an illustration called, “And Mama Keeps ‘Em Growing,” which was selected for the cover of the international literary journal, “Waxwing.” He also wrote a poem called, “We Ask to Not Be Black,” which earned a silver national medal from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.
Inspired by the events following the death of George Floyd, he said he wanted to use art as a way to share his experience growing up Black in America.
“I [tried] to send that sort of message that our skin color is a part of us and it’s something that we were born with and that makes us unique and it’s not something people should [look] down upon,” he said.
Elhassan said he is looking forward to taking advantage of the opportunities provided at Stanford.
“It means so much to me and my family to see somebody from my demographic push the boundaries and break down the obstacles and end up overcoming all of the adversity that we might have had in my life,” he said. “I’m just really excited to take initiative and make use of everything that’s offered there.”