​​In March 2011, when I was just a second-grader, the Syrian civil war began.

It felt like the war stole my childhood. My parents were worried because of the random missiles and kidnappings that occurred every day. The situation in Syria got worse very quickly; some cities were completely destroyed. My city, Latakia, was one of the few places that was not as hard hit.  But even there, we were bombed by missiles, and many people we knew lost their lives. I did not have a safe childhood.

During my high school years, in February 2023, as I was getting ready for my Syrian national leaving examinations, a big earthquake hit my city, Latakia. We had to move out of our house because the danger of more earthquakes was still real. In July, after all that, I took my national leaving examinations and got the 8th rank nationally by final score, with a score of 2893/2900.

The Syrian war hit my family hard financially. There were times when my parents' combined salaries didn't reach 100 US dollars a month. My father then started working as a freelancer to help us get by. I helped my family with money by working as a math/ programming instructor and ESL teacher for three years. My father earns around 100 USD a month from his job as a university professor, and around the same amount from his freelancing job. My mother, on the other hand, earns around 110 USD from her job. While my earnings vary from month to month, depending on the number of lessons that I teach, typically I get 75 USD.

Despite the war, when I was an eleventh grader, my team got first place nationally in the Syrian Mathematical Modeling Challenge to optimize water access from the Euphrates River for local residents. Our findings were presented to governmental officials, and we qualified for the international round. I led several projects, including one where we tried to find numerical solutions to cancer cell multiplication prediction. I am passionate about the integration between sciences, especially the connection between mathematical models and biological sciences.

In December 2024, I got into UPenn with a full-ride scholarship. However, due to the travel ban on Yemeni nationals by the US, I couldn’t go there. Then, in July 2025, I got into Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) with a full-ride scholarship, but my visa to Hong Kong was denied because of my residency circumstances in Syria last year. This year, my admission to HKUST was reinstated with the help of Second Chance, and I reapplied for the visa in mid June. Recently, I received the decision that my student visa to Hong Kong was refused again. And with this refusal, my third opportunity to access higher education was gone.

Despite three visa denials, I will not be deterred from my goal. I will find a way to go to university, with the support of Second Chance. I know that, but I don’t know when or where. I am applying to Sabancı University in Türkiye and Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, and I pray that finances won’t be the reason keeping me away from what I want: education.