Over the summer, Hanna Baker, 2024 Mount Si High School graduate and Sophie Theriault Empower Youth Voice Scholarship Award recipient, celebrated her graduation, traveled to Italy with a friend, and returned to Snoqualmie Valley where she began to pack for college.
It was natural for Hanna to apply for Empower Youth Network’s (EYN) Sophie Theriault Empower Youth Voice Scholarship Award. She has served on the EYN board and carried out youth suicide prevention efforts over the last three years, in efforts with EYN and even other groups.
Hanna has grown up in the valley her whole life. She said she enjoys the feeling of a small community, which made her feel inclined to find ways to help. She feels she was able to make herself useful to the place she cares so much about by volunteering with EYN. The suicide prevention program made the biggest impact on shaping Hanna’s purpose, she said “It made me realize I want to serve or help people in whatever capacity I can.”
She had originally decided to study sociology this fall, but between Hanna’s passion for helping people and the American Law class she took her senior year, she changed her degree to be focused on political science and pre-law. She noted Mr. Greg taught American Law so well that despite it being her first period class at 7:50 a.m., she enjoyed it so much she would even reschedule doctors’ appointments to avoid missing it.
While Hanna appreciates her life in the valley, she needed to get a change of scenery for college. During her junior year, Hanna felt especially excited. “I was like I am going to get out of here, reinvent myself, start something new,” she said, but as her time to leave the valley grew closer it started to feel less easy to leave. The excitement is still there for her, but the feeling of leaving was harder than she thought it would be.
Colorado State University (CSU) will be where Hanna heads to college this fall. Last year, she applied to 10 schools and got into nine. She was interested in three schools in Colorado, one in Montana, and the rest were on the East Coast. Hanna felt the East Coast was “really far” from home, which made her realize that while she wanted to get out of Washington, she did not want that much distance between school and the valley. So, she took a look at four schools in Colorado in the fall of 2023, and landed on CSU because the university had the perfect blend of social life and academics she was looking for.
After graduating from CSU, Hanna is looking to go to law school. She finds value in the knowledge that comes with having a law degree, so she wants a Juris Doctor (JD) at the very least–even if she does not use her JD as a lawyer, she knows it will serve her well in whatever she pursues. Hanna thinks she will be ready to move on from Colorado once she graduates from CSU, and plans to head out east for law school then.
Hanna researched schools, went on tours, submitted applications, and got scholarships. After completing all those steps and moving onto her next chapter, she expressed that she was so relieved. Hanna is the oldest out of her siblings, and she felt like she had a lot to figure out due to that. She acknowledges that she was fortunate to have a college advisor to make the process less overwhelming, especially because she had so much to do her senior year.
As far as Hanna’s advice goes for the next students gearing up to go to college, she mainly wants to encourage them to dedicate time to the process, whether that is sitting down and powering through applications or finding a way to tour schools. She noted that she ended up submitting applications early, so everything was done around Halloween which allowed Hanna to really enjoy the holidays. She was also happy she had visited schools—CSU has been low on her list of choices, but a tour made it her top pick. Despite the occasional stress throughout the process, Hanna felt she “had it pretty easy.” Her parents were able to connect her to an advisor, and she hopes that becomes a more accessible resource for prospective college students.
Empower Youth Network (EYN) thanks Hanna Baker for all her service over the years to empower youth in Snoqualmie Valley. EYN wishes her all the best in her studies at Colorado State University. Go, Rams!
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