Mashaal Shameem
B.A., cum laude, Accounting and Management, 2023
Assistant Director of Residential Life, Shoreline College
“For me, being an Alfie Scholar means that I get to bring my whole, authentic self to the program. My lived experiences, culture and beliefs are not parallel to that of my peers, but we are all embraced and treated as equals. Being an Alfie Scholar teaches us to analyze our surroundings with a civility lens and always carry forth an attitude of positive determination when we set out to create a difference in the world.”
Service & Work:
Vice President of Human Resources, Motmot Coffee, Fall 2021–present
Resident Assistant at Murphy Apartments, Winter 2022–present
Student Representative on the SHEEO Taskforce, WSBCTC, 2021–2022
Senior IDEAL Fellow and Teacher Assistant, June 2021–Present
IDEAL Guided Pathways Fellow, Shoreline Community College, 2021
Communities for our Colleges Coalition, Fall 2020–Present
Awards & Honors:
Ignatian Leader, 2022–2023
President, Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit Honor Society, 2022–2023
First-Gen Honor Society
Student Representative on the SHEEO Taskforce, WSBCTC, 2021–2022
Housing and Residence Life All-Star, Most Impactful Person (Housing and Residence Life)
Koch's Rising Star Award, Accounting Department
President's List
Dean's List
Alfie Scholars, Cohort 6, 2021–2023
Academic Achievement Scholarship
Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society
Honors Student Council President, Shoreline Community College, 2020–2021
Honors Student Council Communication Chair, Shoreline Community College, 2020–2021
All Washington Academic Team, 2021
President’s Scholar, Shoreline Community College
Shoreline Student Service Award
Mashaal’s Story
As a person, I have always been a pretty focused. When you are the eldest daughter of two immigrant parents - who left behind a sense of security and life of comfort in their homeland to pursue a greater destiny in the “Land of Opportunities” - you have to be. I am forever grateful and inspired by the sacrifice and bravery of my parents and in return, vow to make them proud by not only availing, but excelling at the opportunities that come my way, with ironclad priorities and never taking my eyes off the prize. It is exactly how I operated for most of my academic career which was based first in the primary schools of Toronto, Canada and then in the International Board of Cambridge education system in Karachi, Pakistan. From a young age, I was constantly competing, always in a race to be the best. I felt like I had something to prove and I wasn’t going to stop until I had taken advantage of any and every opportunity that came my way. I joined clubs, availed of scholarship programs and volunteered in my community, and each one of those experiences gave me a sense of purpose. And who was I to turn down such great opportunities? What would my worth amount to if I didn’t avail of them?
What I have realized, however, is that I spent a significant part of my youth defining who I was by my educational experiences, and while many of them were very meaningful, it was not until I had enrolled at Shoreline Community College and then Seattle University, that I began to explore other aspects of my identity, such as my culture and my race, and truly began to understand my own privilege, and how that impacted who I was as a student, leader, and individual. I never considered just how powerful owning up to my identity would be, the primary reason being that the first opportunity I had to proudly showcase my culture ended up becoming an incident where I was shunned for being different. As a 5-year-old kindergartener, I was excited to open my lunchbox, filled with delicious Pakistani food that my mother lovingly made for me and immediately heard my “friend” next to me scream “Ewww! Your food smells and looks like dog poop! Why are you eating that!!?” As I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks, my friend hollered to the rest of our class, and I felt greatly embarrassed as part of my culture became the subject of ridicule among the other kids in my grade. When I started going to school in Pakistan, I was still considered different, only now I was bullied for being too American and for speaking in English with a “fake” accent. As time went on, I began burying more and more aspects of who I was. My educational experiences around identity became bookended by multiple experiences of being “othered.” Amidst all this negativity, I did know one thing for sure, which was that I did not want anyone else to ever experience feelings of shame or guilt when it came to owning who they are. What finally planted the seed of acceptance in my own head was none other than one of my professors in high school. He passionately spoke, “You should always be thankful that you live in a free country. It has given you all the necessary resources, in the form of shelter, food and an education, to succeed. Tomorrow when you set foot on different paths in the world, you are representing where you came from and should feel extremely proud in doing so.” These words of wisdom echo in my heart as a daily mantra. After this, it took a long period of self-reflection for me to embrace all of my identities and proudly show off the hand that life had dealt me.
I now understand that my identity and my educational experiences are a part of (as the Alfie program defines it) my whole self and there is beauty in that. My standards of success are not limited to surface level accomplishments and instead extend themselves to my values of positive human connection, social equity and justice at a deeper level. I used to think that success only appeared in a certain way when in fact, success is like this beautiful abstract painting. Abstract paintings are amazing, because everyone interprets the colors and shapes differently and on their own terms. With that in mind, each of us should define our own success and measure our growth in the same way.
To whomever ends up reading this, my sincerest wish and message to you would be to own your identity. You are who you are because of your lived experiences, culture, values. Don’t be afraid to show it! You were created to take up space, so do it. Your voice and what you have to say is significant and undoubtedly, one of your greatest instruments in your journey through this life and will help you accomplish the desired goals you have in life.
Goals:
My immediate goal is to graduate from Seattle University with a bachelor’s degree in Accounting with a focus on Global Business and Strategic Communication. I also want to continue to participate in a variety of volunteer opportunities where I can continue to engage with people from different backgrounds while exercising my love for social advocacy and equity work.
Though I was born in the U.S, I grew up in Canada and Pakistan. As such, not only is my education a product of different academic systems, but the cultural understanding and awareness I have formed over the years is also a by-product of the diverse environments I grew up in. My environments were diverse but there was one thing that remained constantly common in the communities that I lived in, and that was inequity. Whether it be socio-economic status, access to basic necessities, education or the deliverance of justice, inequity is the fire that burned the bridge of progress before it could establish any change. As a person of color, I recognize that I have the privilege to create this much needed, positive transformation in our communities. The idea of living in a society that is built on the foundation of equity is a continuous motivation in everything I do.
It is why my career goal is to become a lawyer specializing in immigration or civil rights. I want to be able to use my platform to uplift marginalized communities and ensure that my education and skillset can be contributed to their well-being. For me, equitable access to all necessary services such as shelter, food and education is of utmost importance and something I hope to foster using the resources I have at my disposal.
On Civility:
The definition of civility is ever-changing and all-encompassing of many positive values, but at its very core civility means full acceptance, entails achieving balance and requires practicing patience. The first core aspect of civility is acceptance. It means being accepting of another’s background, race, religion, and culture as well as any other aspect of their identity they choose to identify themselves by. The active choice of adopting an attitude of acceptance instead of simple tolerance can make all the difference in your interaction with people from all walks of life. You have the power to make people feel welcome, and more importantly, safe, in any conversation and/or space. Civility also requires the incorporation of balance. An area that requires a significant amount of balance is one’s perspective. Striving to create balance in perspective requires “putting yourself in one’s shoes” in order to understand the prior experiences of someone who expresses a certain opinion or thought. The idea that an expression of a certain thought or action can be met, first with neutrality and open-mindedness and then with an in-depth conversation, in which various point of views are discussed to arrive at a possible conclusion, remains a focal point in how to practice fostering civility in all of our surrounding environments. Above all, civility requires patience. There needs to be patience when learning, and then trying to implement these values through positive behaviors, and patience when met with adversity in the form of people or institutions who may prove to be biased in their behaviors.
