By Jada Bouyer
Jada is an incoming freshman and a part of the Multicultural Emerging Scholars Program at the University of Toledo. She will be pursuing a degree in pharmaceutical sciences and playing on UT’s volleyball team. She is from Cincinnati, Ohio. Follow along below as Jada tells the story of her journey to Toledo. Julia Conti contributed to this story.
Hi, my name’s Jada Bouyer and this is my story: born at Henry Ford hospital in Detroit, Michigan, and at the age of two moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, the place where my story really starts. Nothing major happened up until I hit the age of seven when my baby brother was born, Christopher. At that point things got a little crazy: hospital visit after hospital visit, and nosebleed after nosebleed. We soon realized something was wrong.
He has Von Wille Bran disease, a form of Hemophilia. No doctor, no scientist could figure out a solution to the problem, so that’s when I began thinking because I couldn’t bear to see my brand-new brother struggle so hard when I had never experienced anything painful like that.
The next chapter starts my athletic career. I started going to volleyball camps and training teams around sixth grade. I picked up on the skills pretty quick and decided in seventh grade I was going to try out for the team. I made it; my confidence boosted. Fast forward a few years and now I’m a sophomore in high school and the only sophomore on the varsity volleyball team.
Colleges began their search for me, and the name Toledo popped up. This gold and midnight blue school caught my eye as they have the degree, pharmaceutical sciences, that I wanted. This is what motivated me so hard to come here. I knew that if I earned that degree that I could help my brother and others just like him.
I decided I was in and let the world know that I was continuing my career as an athlete and starting my career as a scientist at the University of Toledo.
Toledo is the place for me because it helps me pursue my dreams. It lets me do the things that I love around people that support me. An opportunity and a place like Toledo is one and a million and I can’t wait to start pursuing my dream in the fall. GO ROCKETS!
