LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Life can be tough, but Mikayla Willis-Carson is tougher.
The Senior at Louisville’s Iroquois High School has overcome multiple obstacles in her life to earn a 4.1 GPA and an invite to Kentucky’s prestigious Governor's Scholar program and the Churchill Down’s Winner’s Circle. She also participates in the Upward Bound program at the University of Louisville.
What You Need To Know
- Mikayla Willis-Carson has a 4.1 GPA at Louisville’s Iroquois HS and is a Governor’s Scholar
- Her birth parents struggled with addiction
- Her new parents dealt with several health challenges
- She'll attend Western Kentucky University with the goal of being a Pediatric Nurse
Willis-Carson achieves all that while working a part-time job and taking care of family members. It’s a sense of dedication that sets herself up on a path for success despite facing hardships in her life.
“I've been able to achieve what I've been able to achieve through focus and drive," she said. "Seeing where people are around me and where I want to be versus that, looking at examples from my younger days—I want to be more than that and it pushed me to be where I am now.”
Willis-Carson is talking about the unfortunate issue of her parent’s drug abuse when she was a child. It's a topic that she now reflects on with remarkable maturity.
"The biggest challenge I faced was my birth parent's addiction, getting over that and learning it doesn't make them a bad person, they just made bad decisions," she explained. "Now I can see them as the good people they are.”
School Counselor Stephanie Mancuso marveled at how Willis-Carson refuses to let difficult circumstances slow her down.
"Unfortunately so many young people have learned helplessness and are hopeless. [Mikayla] does not have that," Mancuso said.
Willis-Carson moved to new parents for a better life, but then they both faced major health issues. That's when she realized that taking care of them was a gift—one she could give others for the rest of her life.
She decided to become a nurse, hoping to fight racism in the medical field.
"A lot of times people of color are treated differently in the medical field. There are biases that cause worse treatment. But you deserve the same amount of treatment and love as everyone else," Willis-Carson said. "That’s my overall goal – to let everyone know they matter, that they have a place.”
For her, no one matters more than kids. That’s why she’ll specialize in Pediatric Nursing at Western Kentucky University, and she said reaching children at a young age is the best way she can make a difference.
"Kids are so impressionable, their minds are still being shaped in a way," she said. "A lot of hatred is taught, it's learned. People aren’t born hating other people, not born with hatred in their heart. It takes people of other colors to show you a different version than what you have been taught."
She'll likely change many lives, showing them, and all of us, that anything is possible.
That makes her a deserving Spectrum News 1 High School Scholar.