By pursuing her interests to connect with others, Helia Karami has gained a community that will follow her after graduation. On June 13th, she will receive her Bachelor of Life Sciences, with a double major in political science and global heath.
Early in her tenure at St. Michael’s, she wanted to actively participate in what had quickly become her home on campus.
“I tried to involve myself as much as possible at St. Michael’s and I found it was a two-way relationship. Just as I came forward, St. Mike’s came forward to meet me where I was at. I really love that as I graduate, I’m surrounded by this supportive community,” she says.
She benefitted from joining the St. Michael’s Peer Mentorship Program as a mentee in her first year. In subsequent years, she became a mentor and then a mentorship coordinator, organizing events for the mentorship program.
“I really appreciated this role because I got to work with St. Mike’s staff to create a mentorship program that helped other students become more integrated on campus and would eventually call it their home as well,” she says.
For this role, she participated in St. Michael’s student leadership retreat, which brought students in leadership roles at St. Mike’s together to get to know one another to prepare for the upcoming year. “We were given a lot of problem-solving tasks and things that forced us to work together. It was so much fun meeting everyone and by the end I felt like I can rely on these people,” she says.
In her final year, she was also the student coordinator for the Amplify Mentorship Program, which connects fourth-year students with alumni who are in the workforce. “I was connecting students with people who work in industries that they’re interested in. I loved seeing how well received the events were. We had so many students and alumni come out and it was a joy to see students become excited about their options after university,” she says.
Wanting to bring her passion for her global health studies to the St. Michael’s community, she presented at this year’s SMC Undergraduate Research Colloquium. She shared research she completed for a graduate course at U of T’s Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations on the red-light district in Tehran.
“As an Iranian living in the diaspora, I have felt a disconnect with my culture for some time. I wanted to present this research to a new audience and to make people aware about a piece of my country’s history that they many not know too much about,” she says.
This topic related to her global health courses as well, since sex work is among the many areas the discipline covers.
“I’ve always been interested in how politics intersects with health, because it answers the question of how to manage the health of individuals, which leads to health policy,” she says. “My activities and studies widened the scope of how I view the world overall. I’ve been able to make connections between things by analyzing them in new ways and bringing in different opinions,” she says.
Her multiple interests will intersect at the graduate level as well. In September, she will pursue a Master of Arts in politics at the University of Toronto and Master of Public Health at U of T’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
For more on our Class of 2025 graduands :