For my alumni, I choose Hadeer Kamel. He is a good family friend and a person who I look up to. I have known him for about five years and through the five years I was and still am inspired by all his accomplishments.

Kamel is a Villa graduate from the class of 2011. He attended Mercyhurst University and is currently a pharmacist.

His strengths include a quick hands-on learner, ability to multitask and dedication and focus. His only weakness is public speaking, but he says his job helps him work on it.

“Villa was known for its traditions of academic excellence [and] small class size, which gave me more time for one-on-one with the teachers when extra help was needed,” Kamel said.

“After transferring from a public school to Villa, there was an enormous difference in the education level which made it extremely easy for me to excel in my college career,” Kamel said. “Villa offered classes to help prepare for SAT, ACT, and college application process. I still recall during my junior year we had to research and type up a paper that wanted investigated our career options, colleges, cost, prerequisites, etc.”

His favorite thing about Villa was that he was a competitive student, so the annual sports day was his all-time favorite thing. He also remembers the ceremony villa students participated in for Mary’s Day.

One of Hadeer’s core memories from Villa was playing and traveling with the basketball team.

“Coach Lunger subbed me in the last two minutes of my first home basketball game, and I was able to score a three-pointer,” he said. “It sure made him proud.”

He said he would not change a thing about his experience at Villa; it was perfect.

Kamel said that getting to his career was not easy, but with the right dedication you can overcome anything.

I asked him about his struggles getting to his career and he said, “Pharmacy is extremely competitive due to the low number of seats on each program and the rigorous admission requirements. I was fortunate enough to have good mentors and education which helped me get to my career.”

He did say that Villa definitely played a role in preparing him for the real world and undergraduate.

“Being a pharmacist helps me be an integral part of the community to help deliver and improve patient outcomes,” he said. “Being bilingual also allows me to facilitate and fill the gap between non-English speaking patients and their provider.”

Kamel learned the throughout his years “that failure is not the end of your career. It will foster creativity and train you to be a stronger person who will appreciate the success.”