Umar Sodiq of Ojo, Nigeria, a 2017 graduate of Al-Kawthar Model College, has been admitted to the University of Illinois Springfield for Fall Semester 2022 and awarded a $4,000 Lincoln Merit Scholarship for tuition over four years. At UIS, he plans to major in computer science.

The scholarship is awarded based on high school GPA and can be renewed for a total of four years if the student maintains college GPA requirements.

At Al-Kawthar Model College, he played football (soccer) and table tennis.

“The CLS [MLS] program exceedingly prepared me to enter the field as a new tech… [in PA school at Evansville] my preceptor commented that I was miles ahead of other students in the same rotation because he didn’t have to waste time explaining the labs.”

“My CLS [MLS] degree provided me with all the correct pre-requisites to get into my graduate program…The CLS [MLS] program provides an immense amount of clinical knowledge that a majority of medical professionals are lacking in the beginning of their career journey.”

“CLS [MLS] truly prepared me enough to face challenges in the lab…all the teachers in CLS [MLS] definitely trained me well to start my career as a clinical [medical] laboratory scientist”.

“Upon graduating from UIS MLS in 2018, I worked at St. John’s Hospital as a MLS in the core lab for just under two years. I applied to Physician Assistant School in April 2019 and began my journey as a PA-S at the University of Charleston in Charleston, WV in January 2020. While I haven’t been a PA-S very long, I can already see how well the MLS program prepared me and how my knowledge of the lab and clinical medicine has helped set me up for success as a future PA-C.”