Adrianna Martinez has long believed in following paths that present opportunity.
One of them led her from Colorado to Minnesota, when her family moved here following her stepdad’s promotion. She was a college sophomore at the time.
Another inspired her to enroll in the University of Minnesota, and its Medical Laboratory Sciences (MLS) program, a field of study that wasn’t available where she was from and could allow her to immerse herself in her passion for the sciences.
“I love to work in the lab, interpret results, contribute to diagnostic decisions,” she says.
Adrianna secured a job to help pay for her schooling, but encountered a problem.
“I realized the intense amount of time needed to dedicate yourself to the courses, inside and outside of the classroom,” she said. “Balancing school and work made it difficult to excel academically for lack of time, but I needed to work to pay for school and life expenses.”
Adrianna learned of a new Health Resources and Services Administration grant that became available to the University of Minnesota’s MLS program, called, coincidentally, the Pathways Scholarship.
She applied. And she qualified.
“I cried tears of joy because not a lot of kids are fortunate enough to have that opportunity and to have that help. I was ecstatic,” she said. “I had student debt. It brought on a lot of stress to me. Now, I feel healthier mentally, I was able to quit that job, and it enables me to balance aspects of my life and not stay up late worrying about it.”
Here are the specific qualifying guidelines for University of Minnesota MLS students to receive funding from The MLS Pathways Scholarship, and descriptions of the many other scholarships that students in the MLS program can apply to receive.