Hannah Williamson was just four years old when her parents divorced. “It was difficult, but I have a good relationship with both of my parents,” she says. That experienced shaped her childhood and set her on a path to her future.
The middle child among three girls, Williamson always had a keen eye for family dynamics. Her parents loved and supported her; she learned from her big sister and helped her younger one. She went to therapy and understood the importance of good mental health.
“Being a child of divorce, I became interested in counseling,” which meant Williamson would have to do something neither of her parents had done, graduate college. “They didn’t go, so they wanted me to go. It was a goal from the beginning.”
After graduation from Southeast Guilford in 2017, she started her journey at Greensboro College with help from shift_ed. “I am paying my own way to college and getting loans. Knowing that I have an organization that is helping me through college has definitely reduced my stress.”
In spring 2021, Williamson graduated with a BA in Human Development and Family Science and a minor in Psychology. Last fall she began work on her master’s degree in social work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She’s on her way to realizing the dream that started when she was a little girl. “I’m really interested in helping children and families, making families aware that they have resources and children aware that they have a support system.”
shift_ed boldly accelerates student potential