Blessing during a Networking Night at the 2025 EnvisionU in Saint Louis.
As the Artemis II rocket heads off towards the moon, Hope Ignites Colorado scholar, Blessing, is thinking about how her future is about to take off in its own way. “I’m nervous, but excited” she said about reaching the end of her high school career and looking towards college. Blessing is planning to attend Washington University in Saint Louis and her interest in Bio-Astronautics has her planning to major in Mechanical Engineering and Pre-Med.
As Blessing looks back at her experiences in high school, she points to several that made an impact on her plans. “Well, I wouldn’t have even known about Washington University if we hadn’t gone to Saint Louis for EnvisionU,” Blessing shared. EnvisionU is an annual gathering of rising high school seniors from across the Hope Ignites Network. It meets on the campus of a Hope Ignites partner school and offers college prep related seminars, a partner-school college fair, and a variety of opportunities to get to know other scholars from across the network.
Blessing notes that building model rockets in a Rocket Science class at Regis Jesuit High School led to her interest in engineering. Her interest in the biology side, however, came from her experience interning in the Pathology department through the MC^2 program. She credits Hope Ignites Colorado with helping her access this internship program that has allowed her to examine real tissue in a hands-on medical setting. It’s the combination of these two interests that has her eyes set on Bio-Astronautics which she described as “the engineering that supports life in space.”
Blessing may not have known about Washington University in Saint Louis a year ago, but today she excitedly speaks about the strength of their research program and how much she is looking forward to pursuing her passions on their campus. “I’m ready to get out of my comfort zone and meet new people,” she says.
Hope Ignites Colorado is looking forward to seeing Blessing and all 16 other seniors launch into their next phase of life.