Meet Zainab!

Zainab Adamou-Mohamed, a first-year studio art major, minoring in rhetoric and public advocacy is involved in all sorts of on-campus organizations and engagements. She’s the co-creative director for the Muslims Student Association, in the Office of Leadership and Civic Engagement Silver Leadership Challenge Program, and pursuing international honors at the Lloyd International Honors College. 

Zainab has always been around higher education. Both of her parents obtained degrees in West Africa, then continued their education upon immigrating to the United States. Her mother even pursued her bachelor’s degree while raising Zainab and her brother, often bringing them to the campus with her while she studied. With this, Zainab said she felt she was expected to pursue higher education, even if not a four-year institution. Zainab personally saw higher education as a way to expand her horizons and interests outside of high school. 

She talked about some difficulties in deciding what to study. She was set on studying art from very early in her high school career, but had a self-described crisis her senior year, wondering what kind of jobs she could expect to get with an art degree. Because of this, she changed her major to political science upon admission to university. After talking with current art students, she realized she could pursue art, and there were a variety of jobs offered within that field, so she changed back to art at orientation and never looked back. 

As for her application process, she started applying in her junior year of high school. As her junior year art teacher required her students to create a Common App profile and start obtaining application materials, such as portfolios, reference letters, and essays. Like a lot of students, she originally wanted to apply to a lot more schools but quickly realized the application fees add up quickly. She applied to mainly in-state schools due to the cost difference between in-state schools, out-of-state schools, and private schools. She really focused at the beginning of her senior year working on her portfolio and meeting with teachers to get their opinion, and by the time early action came in November, she was ready to submit all of her applications. In between this time, she attended preview interviews and tours to get to know each of the schools more and submitted post-admission applications, such as the honors college. 

Ultimately, like many students, her final decision came down to logistical factors, such as financial aid awards and proximity to her family home, before ultimately deciding on UNCG after positive experiences with the faculty and staff she interacted with. 

If Zainab were to go back and do anything differently, she says she wishes she had a more open mindset and not been so obsessive over one school. He wishes she could tell herself, and future students, to choose what makes the most sense for them, not just what other people like the most!