Mia Willard began her UCF education from Kyiv before war broke out. In the midst of explosions and near misses, she continued an amazing undergraduate journey that took her deeper into danger. She candidly responds to questions very few people will ever have to answer, but “How do you plan to celebrate?” catches her by surprise. “When I saw that question before our conversation, it was the first time I contemplated it,” Willard says. She pauses for a moment, which is something she has rarely taken time to do since Russia began bombarding her Ukrainian homeland more than two years ago. “You could say my educational journey has not been a traditional one.”She’s been trying to focus on classwork from some of the worst war-torn areas of Ukraine. The assignments, honestly, have been secondary to providing aid for people, narrowly surviving landmines and missiles, rescuing animals from the rooftops of homes underwater and recovering from the shock of finding the bodies of civilians in villages and small settlements.
https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucf-student-graduates-after-studying-online-from-ukraine-providing-aid/
