Shoot your Shot featuring Aya Waller-Bey
In this installment of the Detroit Worldwide Podcast, Marquis connects with first-gen doctoral student, Aya Waller-Bey about her experiences growing up in the city and her travels across the globe.
Aya also highlights the spaces she's navigated as a first-generation college student and what it means to leverage resources for personal and professional growth.
About Aya:
Aya M. Waller-Bey is a proud Detroiter, first-generation college student, and an alumna of Renaissance High School. She is currently a second-year doctoral student in Sociology at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor. She serves as a Co-Chair for Sociology Graduate Students, and the Co-Chair for the First Gen Student Affinity Group. Her current research broadly includes the sociology of higher education where she examines the experiences of Black students during the college admissions process and the ways predominantly white institutions engage the experiences, stories, and views shared by Black students in their college applications, once those students are admitted.
For undergrad, Aya attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. where she majored in Sociology, graduating Cum Laude. After graduation, Aya remained at Georgetown working as an Admissions Officer and the Coordinator of Multicultural Recruitment in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. In 2015, she was awarded the Gates Cambridge Scholarship to the University of Cambridge in England—a scholarship awarded to only 40 people in the US each year—and completed her Master of Philosophy in Education, earning a first-class distinction.
Aya has shared her insights on postsecondary access, diversity, and inclusion in op-eds in the Huffington Post UK, University World News, The Hechinger Report and the 2016 White House Summit for Advancing Postsecondary Diversity and Inclusion. In spring 2019, Aya discussed the experiences of historically disadvantaged students attending elite institutions as a panelist at SXSW Education in Austin, Texas and as a panelist at College Board’s A Dream Deferred: The Future of African American conference in Los Angeles. Her leadership and research have also been highlighted in specials on PBS Newshour and NBC’s 4 “Talk around the Town” and in the Cambridge Alumni Magazine, the Washington Post, and the University World News. In 2017, Aya found the CALCC--College Admissions Literacy Consulting Company--an online resource that highlights resources, opportunities, and news regarding college admissions and college access.
Connect with Aya:
Website: www.ayawallerbey.com
Twitter: aya__marie
Instagram: aya__marie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecalcc/