Julia Mariga
B.S., magna cum laude, Nursing, 2018
Registered Nurse
Student, D.N.P. in Nurse Anesthesia Program, Virginia Commonwealth University
Julia was born in Thika, a small village in Kenya where she lived for most of her childhood. While on a trip to Kenya in 2014, Julia came to realize the health disparities that affect many people in Kenya and our global community. She hopes to aid in the restructuring of healthcare for those most affected by health disparities. Julia is working as a Contract Registered Nurse and will begin a Nurse Anesthetist program at Virginia Commonwealth University in Summer 2023.
Edmonds Community College, Associate of Arts in Pre-nursing, 2016
Service:
Secretary, Edmonds Community College Black Student Union
Co-creator and facilitator, Edmonds Community College weekly “Cultural Conversations”
Volunteer, Swedish Medical Center
Student Ambassador, Seattle University 125th Anniversary Gala
Awards/honors:
Vice President of Community Service, Tau Sigma Honor Society
Mary Mahoney Scholarship
Boeing Scholarship
President’s Education Award Program 2014
Edmonds Community College Honor Roll 2014 – 2015
Goals: Upon finishing my degree, I plan on moving back to Kenya and working with underserved populations. Eventually, I would also like to travel outside of Kenya continuing to help better the lives of those living with inadequate healthcare.
Civility: In my own life, fostering civility comes from choosing to be intentional in what I do and in how I interact with people around me. Civility is a choice one has to make on a daily basis. Becoming a civil person is not an event that occurs once in a lifetime; instead it’s a process that requires us to choose to be proactive in making a conscious choice about being civil. We can change our lives by being intentional and fully understanding the impact we as individuals can make. In doing so, we can create change in our communities. The world is one global community made up of smaller communities. By becoming more civil individuals, we have the ability to create a domino effect that has the potential for creating global change. But before any of that can become a reality, we first have to make an individual choice to foster civility in our own lives.
Civility is not just ending racism or gender inequality. Civility is choosing to do the right thing in order to make our world more just and humane. This could be as simple as smiling at people as you walk down the street or holding the door open for someone. It’s these small things that resonate with people and together make immense changes and foster civility with one another. Maya Angelou once said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” Every day we have the choice to foster civility and positively impact people or break them down through our actions and words.
Autobiography: I was born in Thika, a small village in Kenya where I lived for most of my childhood. I speak Kikuyu, which is my mother tongue, Swahili, and English. Living in Kenya opened my eyes to the health disparities that face many people in Kenya and also globally. I moved to the United States in 2004. When I returned to Kenya in 2014, I met many people with great need for medical attention, but people did not have the finances to get assistance. Coming from the United States where accessing medical attention is readily available, it was heartbreaking to see so many people in need of basic medical assistance. My trip to Kenya served as a defining moment for what I wanted to do with my life; serve others through my career as a nurse. This became not only my ambition but also my motivation.
While at Edmonds Community College, I was involved in the Black Student Union, which focused on fostering important and often sensitive dialogue about race, culture, and diversity. By being one of the Alfie Scholars, I will be able to grow with a group other students, and together we will be able to build each other up to be the leaders of tomorrow. As part of Seattle University’s Alfie Scholars, I aspire to use this opportunity to grow as a leader and be better prepared to make this world a more civil, just, and humane world.
