UA Little Rock Grad Finds Joy in Mentoring Others
Throughout her time at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, graduate Mikiya McAdory has become a mentor dedicated to helping students get the most out of their college education.
The Osceola, Arkansas native graduated this May with a bachelor’s degree in biology and minor in chemistry.
“I’m feeling very grateful and accomplished and proud of myself, especially since not everyone has the means to go out and get a college degree,” she said.
While at UA Little Rock, McAdory served as a mentor with the Student Affairs Diversity Initiatives (SADI) and the Arkansas Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation.
“I was able to share my experiences and my skills, especially for those who were minority and first-generation students,” McAdory said. “It was very fulfilling, and it was nice to have a community of people who came from the same background and had the same struggle as me.”
A first-generation college student, McAdory joined UA Little Rock as a member of the Donaghey Scholars Honors Program and said she “is trying to set a good example for my siblings” by earning her college degree.
In addition to mentoring, McAdory volunteered as a composition teachers assistant during the Summer Bridge Academy, a residential program aimed at preparing incoming freshmen for college-level work by eliminating the need for them to take developmental math and composition courses, as well as acclimating them to the university environment.
“Being able to work with those kids who are coming into college and try to give them advice about their first years made me realize that I do enjoy helping and mentoring other people,” she said. “I like to be a source of knowledge for other people. There is no sense in harboring information if it can help somebody else.”
To prepare for a medical career, McAdory has worked as a research assistant in the Emergency Department at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and a hospice volunteer.
After graduation, McAdory will leave for Argentina to spend two months studying Spanish. She will return in the fall to apply for medical school with the ultimate goal of becoming a forensic pathologist, a goal she credits to Netflix.
“All my life, I knew I wanted to be a doctor, but I didn’t know until my senior year of high school that I wanted to be a pathologist,” she said. “A Netflix special helped me figure it out. I watched a documentary about the post-mortem view of a person’s body and how you can tell things about how a person lived, like what kind of job they had and if they were an athlete.”
