Sara Yogi
Working toward a career in education policymaking
Sara Yogi, 26, and her family emigrated from Nepal to the United States in 1999.
The U.S. education system has at times been challenging to navigate. A graduate of Rancho Bernardo High School, Yogi first entered Grossmont College in 2016 but struggled with income and housing uncertainty and stopped her studies there. She returned to Grossmont in 2020 to pursue a career in education. Yogi took courses in cognitive science and began to explore a transfer to one of the University of California campuses.
A year after returning to Grossmont, Yogi learned she would receive two Dahlberg Family Scholarships. She accepted $500 in the fall of 2021, and another $500 in the spring of 2022. “This is why I am so grateful to be in this country,” Yogi said. The scholarships sent a powerful message of support and recognition, she said.
Now a student at UCLA, Yogi is majoring in Education and Social Transformation, which looks at how to analyze current issues in education through a social justice lens and emerge as effective advocates for positive change. She aims to one day play an important role in setting educational policy.
“I’m just so grateful that there are people out there in the world who want to give to students like me who have college dreams, who have aspirations,” she said.