Lizah Masis '12

Country Investment and Knowledge Director, Financing Alliance for Health

“Coming from Kenya, where I would have been expected to pursue an undergraduate degree in medicine, Swarthmore represented a certain kind of freedom. No sooner had I arrived on campus than I realized that this was a different kind of freedom. This freedom yielded more questions than answers; made me feel a deep sense of responsibility for the world around me; and threw me into confusion, but made me grow. Looking around, all students were intensely absorbed in exploring their own questions. This freedom permeated all times of day and all corners of campus. I can think of no other time when I underwent such deep and intense growth across all areas of my life as I did at Swarthmore. What crowned my experience is that Swarthmore's atmosphere encouraged this type of growth and availed abundant resources to support it.”