Where You Start Doesn't Define Where You Can Go
This June, we celebrate the stories and accomplishments of all South Seattle College graduates. Every one of them represents a journey of effort, sacrifice, and hope. Here are two of those stories.
Two women. Two countries. One college, and one next step.
South Seattle students, Danna Karime Gamboa Méndez and Ngoc Thao Minh Huynh (Minnie) Huynh graduate from South Seattle College this Spring. One came from Colombia, the other from Vietnam. Both arrived carrying grief and uncertainty. Both rebuilt their lives at South. And both leave as proof of something Danna believes to her core: where you start does not define where you can go.
Danna: dreams delayed are not dreams denied
Danna's story began long before South, in Colombia, and it began with loss. She lost her father to violence when she was only four years old. Years later, in 2018, within six months and just before she finished her first bachelor's degree, she lost her mother, her brother, and her grandmother. In one season, everything she knew disappeared, and she was left unsure of who she was supposed to become.
What she held onto was a single belief: dreams delayed are not dreams denied. In 2021, she came to the United States with limited English, carrying that belief and one small hope: that she could rebuild her life. South became the place where the hope turned into something real, the place where she found her voice and her purpose. She names faculty like Morgan Gleaves and Donte Quinine among the people who helped her see that she belonged in science and that leadership can grow out of pain.
A first-generation, non-traditional student, she did not just belong at South. She led. Danna graduates with her Associate of Science in Engineering, a 4.0 GPA, and a place on the President's List. She serves as President of the Phi Theta Kappa Alpha Chi Phi Chapter and as Regional Educational Officer for the PTK Greater Northwest Region, supporting chapters across several states and Canada. Under her leadership the chapter earned Five-Star status, only the second time in South's history. She was selected for the All-Washington Academic Team, an honor reserved for the top students among more than 307,000 across the state. She co-founded the Association for Latin American Scholars, the first organization of its kind in the Seattle Colleges, and led a student delegation to the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute conference in Chicago.
She is also a scientist. Her undergraduate research on ion concentration in kidney health and on bacterial contamination in cosmetic products earned her a place at the University of Washington Undergraduate Research Symposium. She has already taken her next step. She began at UW's College of Engineering this spring, where she is studying chemical engineering with a long-term goal of contributing to public health and biomedical research, especially in kidney disease.
Danna calls herself and her classmates Olympic dreamers, not just people who dream, but people who commit to their dreams with discipline, resilience, and belief. "Dreaming is not enough," she says. "We have to show up every single day and train for the life we want, even when it feels impossible."
Minnie: it is never too late to start again
Minnie Huynh came to South as an immigrant, a mother of two, and a first-generation college student returning to the classroom after more than twenty years away. Her path back was anything but straight. She had once built a business in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and when it collapsed, she was left feeling lost and powerless. In the years that followed she went through a divorce and became a single mother. When her current husband later sponsored her and her two daughters to come to the United States, starting over in a new country felt like a second chance at the education she had set aside, and she returned to school more determined than ever. "Education is not just earning a degree," she says. "It is empowerment."
And she made the most of that chance. At South she earned a 4.0 and a place on both the Dean's List and the President's List while working as a barista at the Alki Cafe, tutoring fellow students in economics and math for free, and raising her two daughters. She is a member of the Alpha Chi Phi Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, leaned on the college's TRIO program, and saw an essay she wrote on Indigenous leader Lorraine Netro selected for publication in the Earth Daughters campaign's Our Voices from the Land project. From her first ESL classes through graduation, she credits professors like Lawrence Angle, Donte Quinine, Haris Mujahid, and Donelle Bart with turning each course into something she came to cherish, and with helping her rediscover herself and think bigger.
Their dedication inspired an ambition of her own, to become a professor. This fall she transfers to UW Seattle to pursue a B.A. in Mathematics: Teacher Preparation, a choice she made after also being accepted to UW Bothell and to Seattle University, which offered her a $25,000 merit scholarship each year. She hopes to inspire not only her future students but also her fellow immigrants, especially her own community, to believe in their potential. One of her long-term goals is to build a nonprofit that helps immigrant families integrate more quickly, continue their education, and succeed in a new country. "It is never too old, too late, or too behind to start over," she says.
Two stories, one Otter family
The threads between them are hard to miss. They share the same PTK chapter, with Danna leading the very Alpha Chi Phi Chapter that Minnie joined. They were supported by some of the same faculty, including Professor Donte Quinine. Both turned profound loss into a sense of purpose, and both are carrying that purpose to UW.
Their journeys say the same thing in two languages. Your struggles are not signs to stop. They are part of becoming. If you keep showing up, your dream is already in motion.
We could not be prouder of Danna and Minnie, of how far they have come, and of where they are going next. And we are just as proud of every Otter crossing the stage this June, each one carrying a story worth telling. Congratulations to the Class of 2026. Go Otters!