Sewit Eshetu

Student

“Ethiopia is in need of more educated people, and hopefully I’ll be able to help out to build.”

The news coming out of Ethiopia these days is much improved, according to Sewit Eshetu, SMC accounting major. “We have a democratic transition government now instead of a military one,” says Sewit (which is pronounced “sweet”). “We used to have a dictator, so things at home are much better now.” And if Sewit has her way, they will improve still more when she returns home.

“I’d like to become a tax lawyer eventually and somehow help to find new investments to help my country’s economy,” she says. But maintaining her own ‘economy’ is a tough enough job just now as an international student. “I have to work full time in retail sales to pay the bills,” she explains. “It’s a hard schedule, but I’ve come all this way to accomplish my goals and aspirations. My family is behind me, and I feel I’m on the right track,” she continues. “But, believe me,” she adds with a rueful laugh, “I have no social life.”

Sewit actually began her American college career at a large university back east. “But SMC is so much better,” she says. “You can have a real one-on-one relationship with your teachers here, and they all know you by name. And one, teacher, Teri Bernstein, has been very helpful to me in my accounting.”

Sewit says she “moved to LA for adventure and to see how life would be without anyone else around. It’s been an adventure, alright,” she adds, “but I’ve learned an awful lot by being independent.” Her dreams, she says, are taking shape nicely at SMC. But she cautions that realizing a dream sometimes takes everything you’ve got. “Destiny is you, yourself,” says Sewit. “Nobody can take care of that for you. You must fulfill yourself.”

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