As a Washington, D.C. homeless shelter resident, 18-year-old Rashema Melson knows that education is key to escaping her current circumstances.
The 4.0 GPA senior at Anacostia High School is proof that hard work and dedication pays off, as the teen has just earned a full scholarship to attend Georgetown University.
“I feel accomplished,” she tells FOX 5 DC. “I feel I did something worthy. I feel like I did it. But I’m not done yet.”
Melson, who for the past two years has been living in a shelter with her mother and two siblings, plans to major in biology and wants to become a forensic pathologist. And despite her humble living situation, the young scholar says that it wasn’t hard for her to focus on her studies.
“It’s not hard for me because I want it,†she says. “Like when you don’t want it and you’re just doing it because you have to, it’s like a struggle. But I want to be successful and this is what I want. And that’s my goal in life — to like be successful.”