By Chayil Champion, contributing writer
One is a fictional superhero and the other was an equal-rights activist, but they both played an instrumental role in helping Ramadhan Ahmed prepare for his first year of medical school at Johns Hopkins University.
The 2023 Cal State Fullerton University graduate and biological science major didn’t hesitate to talk about how the web-slinging superhero loosely inspired him to choose his field of study.
“I was an undeclared major when I first got to campus. I remember looking for lunch on campus and stumbling into a cafeteria where they were giving a seminar showing how you can engineer any cell of the body to become any other part of another cell of the body,” Ahmed said. “I grew up reading comic books, so I was like ‘Oh, that’s exactly what they were talking about in Spider-Man.’ At that point, I knew that I liked science.”
Prior to declaring his major, Ahmed was having a hard time adjusting to college life. He was working multiple jobs, which subsequently impacted his grades.
Nonetheless, one book helped him prioritize his objectives and get him back on track.
“I read ‘The Autobiography of Malcom X’ during a time where I was really struggling with school and in life in general. Malcom really got me through that time and elevated my spiritual thought and self-value.”
Born in Wajir, Kenya, a desert village in East Africa with few resources and where using the bathroom meant “using a hole in the dirt,” Ahmed learned not to take life for granted. Coming from a place that births many refugees, Ahmed’s father migrated to the United States when Ahmed was 2 years old.
Ahmed’s father worked as a gas station clerk while trying to establish a suitable living environment before bringing his family to the U.S. He later sent for the rest of the family after Ahmed’s 5th birthday, including Ahmed’s siblings and mother.
It didn’t take Ahmed long to adjust to American life. After moving to the…
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