Iman Nasser

I have to prove that I belong in every room that I'm in. It sucks, but something that I feel like being going against the grain against, you know, my family and their expectations of me in the community, that I have to validate why I did what I did, and that, to me, is you know, to make sure that every role that I have is successful, meaningful, impactful, but again, I want to be the hardest working person in the office. Because I feel like I have that I have that I need to prove. That all the struggles and obstacles that I went through was worth it.

Take people's perceptions of you with a grain of salt. They don't know what you've been through, your life story, your day-to-day efforts. So always take what others say or perception of your work and efforts with a grain of salt, and just believe in yourself. Have confidence. And also be able to provide evidence for your work and what you've done. Even if things don't work out in the way that you want to, it can take years for you to finally understand that everything falls in place the way it's supposed to. And these challenges and these tests make you stronger and prepared and equipped to handle where you're meant to be years down the line.

Persistence. I think it's important. You will get a lot of no's. You will apply to 100 grants, and you'll get rejections. But the 5 that you do get and you are awarded, you really need to just be proud of that. It's a tough industry. You really have to be resilient. And not get bogged down. Because it's not necessarily it doesn't reflect on you, it just the situation, the status of the foundation, their priorities, you know, funding limitations. Numerous reasons why things don't work out the way that you had hoped for, so I think be resilient, be persistent. And truly believe in your mission, that what you're doing is life-changing.

Higher education is a very, very difficult situation, especially small nonprofits such as Dominican University with the current administration, cutbacks on federal funds. It's taken a toll on an already small college at Dominican University, California, and there's not that many opportunities. People want to be a part of a larger equation to a larger impact on the community, and I think that's trying to find those partners that would want to do that. First, to support the program, but to support the students and help provide successful careers after they're done with their studies, so I think just finding those partnerships has been really difficult. Federal grants are not as accessible to us. We have to rely a lot on foundations, but again, we're one of many universities that are struggling. Small, small private universities in California have been closing left and right, so foundations are really putting those in existence under a microscope.