-Katiana's Story

Attending Spokane or Spokane Falls Community Colleges offers our students a chance at a bright future. With an employment rate of over 87%, they can begin a career that will transform their lives and the lives of the people in their community. We know what attending school means for our students’ futures. But sometimes school, and the chance to attend without debt thanks to scholarships, provides something purer, simpler. It provides the chance to fulfill personal dreams. Like Katiana Denis’s dream.

Katiana’s whole face lights up when she talks about graduating.

“It’s hard to explain. It would mean a lot to me, the world really. That is my dream,” she said, smiling and looking out the window. “It would mean a lot to my family; I’d only be the second one in my family to graduate from college. But to see myself graduate and get it all done would be a relief. I’d be somebody.”

Getting an education is something Katiana has wanted for a long time. To her, an education will help her create a better future. And she loves attending school.

She’s currently a civil engineering student at SFCC, which she says suits her. She loves numbers.

She hopes to use this degree to someday open her own business, where she can collaborate with others. That collaboration is one thing she loves about school.

“Meeting new people, communicating with them, is what I like most about school,” she said. That dialogue is what she’s missing most with online classes. “You can’t ask questions over video like you would in class.”

Online learning has been tricky for Katiana overall. “They don’t have it in my country,” she explained. As an international student, learning how to take online classes has required Katiana to change her study habits. “It’s more work, and I have to read the textbooks a lot more.”

She also wasn’t familiar with the idea of scholarships.

Katiana explained that, when learning about how to pay for school in the U.S., she was told about financial aid. She didn’t know international students could receive scholarships. So when she was awarded one, she said it was nothing short of a blessing.

“I’m a student who doesn’t know where next year’s tuition is going to come from,” Katiana said. “To have somebody decide to bless me with a scholarship gives me hope that I’ll be able to have next year covered.”

And that allows her to stay focused on her dream of graduating, of seeing herself finish every homework assignment and project to earn her diploma.

“The scholarship donors have really impacted my life, and I thank them,” Katiana said. “And I hope they know their donation isn’t in vain. Students work hard to make them proud.”


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