Immigrant from Syria reaching for stars

As a teenager doing her best to keep learning and to stay safe in the midst of war, Sara Abou Rashed sometimes let her mind wander to idyllic places. Harvard University sat atop an imaginary list.

“Unattainable,” Rashed told herself. “It’s on the news and it’s for crazy-smart people.”

So when she landed on the revered campus last month, having won a highly competitive spot in Harvard’s Public Policy and Leadership Conference, the 18-yearold retraced her unlikely arc — from Syria to Columbus to Denison University in Granville and the Harvard Kennedy School.

“It’s just been a roller coaster of exciting opportunities,” Rashed said. “And I feel very thankful to Columbus and Ohio for that.”

The Dispatch first wrote about Rashed last summer, when the Centennial High School graduate was honored in the Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio’s “Beat the Odds” scholarship program. Rashed and her mother had escaped the war in Syria in 2013. She couldn’t speak any English when she enrolled in Columbus City Schools as a freshman; by her senior year, she was class valedictorian.

Rashed is now focused on her classes at Denison, her poetry and a commitment to share her story as a young Muslim immigrant — one still fighting heartbreak and alienation — as she pursues a career in public policy and service.