So many District 742 students are off to big things this fall after last spring’s graduation, and Khadar Abdi, now a Tech High School alumnus, is one of them. Abdi’s laser focus through his years at Tech secured him the top ranked spot in his high school class.
Right away in ninth-grade, Abdi made a conscious decision to focus on academics, even though he’d been involved in athletics during his middle school years. He took honors math courses at South Junior High School and attributes his success in advanced placement (AP) math courses during high school to those junior high teachers.
His AP track began his freshman year. By the time he was an upperclassman, nearly all of his classes were AP courses.
Some classes, he felt, came easier to him — world history for example.
“I come from an immigrant family which might have helped my perspective,” explains Abdi. “It’s a more global perspective.”
By his junior year, colleges and universities were in his sightline; however, it was a time of self-reflection as well. He realized that his own spirituality and community are what supported him in his ambition to be the best student he could be. Recognizing the value of his own support system, he saw a need within his own Somali community.
On weekends, Abdi took additional courses at a local Somali school in addition to tutoring younger students to read Arabic and assisting with their lessons. It’s what made him realize he could help other high school students at Tech.
During his junior year, Abdi met with bilingual communication support specialist Bashir Omer about a support study group for other Somali students. They started the group, but with the end of year timing, it didn’t really take off. Yet, Abdi wasn’t swayed and didn’t give up.
“I liked the idea,” says Abdi. “Our [Somali community] challenges are unique … I met a student … who was one of the newer students here,” remembers Abdi. “It was two weeks before school and he’d been trying to change his schedule. He’d been having trouble doing it. Part of it was the language barrier.”
If there were a group of kids that could also help out those vulnerable students (similar to the way Link Crew, to which he was a member, helps younger students navigate school), Abdi thought, then it would be a great new support.
The first part of his senior year, Abdi explored the idea to expand the Somali Support Group beyond just academics to include volunteerism. He approached his counselor with the idea of setting up a tutoring group for one-on-one work instead of having just a Somali study group that met a couple of times a week. This reformed version gave students opportunities to volunteer while helping other students who wanted support. The idea was to encourage students of all color to be involved.
“Mr. Sandavol [Tech assistant principal] was pretty supportive of it,” says Abdi. “We filled out the information [on the form to start a club]. We set up a Somali Support Group and Mrs. Frericks [his language arts teacher] became the advisor.”
The group met once a week to discuss challenges such as space and times. They agreed to set an area aside in the learning resource center for the tutoring. Soon all kinds of students were tutoring during their open periods, to anyone who wanted extra help. The group grew in its success. In fact, for the upcoming year, the plans include tutors in classrooms helping students as well. Any teacher at Tech can sign-up and request students to tutor in their class.
Knowing that the group is in good hands, Abdi now looks to the future. He plans on double majoring in pre-medicine (dentistry) and mechanical engineering at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. (Abdi chose the U after receiving offers from eight colleges and universities across the country.)
“It felt pretty good [receiving the offers],” says Abdi. “Some of them, I definitely didn’t expect … My biggest surprise was Northwestern … and Carleton and Case Western.”
Abdi’s competitive nature, sense of community and laser focus have helped him reach top academic status in high school, and will drive him towards his career goals as he starts university classes this fall. His dream now is to have his own engineering firm or his own dental clinic. One way or another, he’ll get there.
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