Faith Mason is set to embark on her academic journey at Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing this fall. Accepted at the age of 17, she is the youngest student to gain admission to Emory’s School of Nursing.
Mason was born in Annapolis, Maryland, but moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands shortly afterwards. Both her mother and father are from the Virgin Islands, and she aspires to one day go back and pursue a career there in pediatric oncology.
“Health care on the island is difficult to access, especially for specialties beyond general practice,” says Mason. “Specialists in areas like cancer or cardiology are less accessible there compared to the continental U.S.”
Mason and her mother moved back to Maryland before she began school. She completed kindergarten, first and second grade in about a year and a half. They then moved to Georgia and she started third grade at age 6.
She says being the youngest in her class didn’t really become an issue until high school.
“It was a little alienating,” Mason says. “I started high school taking upper level classes; that's when it became a bigger difference. I was 12 years old on my first day of high school and in classes with juniors and seniors who were 17 and 18. It wasn't an issue with the other students, but more of an issue of finding others I could relate to.”
In high school, Mason was salutatorian and was nominated for “shining senior” recognition in the local newspaper. She was also part of QuestBridge, a program for high achieving low-income students to get connected with colleges such as Emory University.
She became a student at Emory in fall 2022, following the pre-med track. She’s already had the opportunity to take some classes related to nursing, which gives her more reasons to be excited about the program.
“Up until this point, all my nursing professors have been Black women,” Mason says. “It’s nice to see people who look like me in impactful positions in the nursing school. It’s very motivating, very enriching to see that.”
Her biggest role model throughout everything has been her mom Mecca Mason, who Mason says has been her biggest supporter and advocate.
“My mom was a single mother, and when we moved to the States, it was just her supporting us,” Mason says. “When I was younger, whatever issue there could have been with money, I never saw that because she would always tell me my job was to listen and learn.”
Mason did listen and learn. Those skills have helped her thrive academically, yet she is most proud of her independence.
“I don’t like being defined only by academics,” she says. “I think there’s so many more dimensions to life that are more worthy to recount.”
One of those other dimensions Mason has enjoyed during her time at Emory has been finding needed connections within the Black academic community. She is one of the programming chairs for the Black Student Alliance, the press publicity chair for the NAACP Emory chapter, and recently joined Zeta Phi Beta, a Divine 9 organization.
Building connections will continue as she begins her nursing school classes. She views nursing school as a way to learn about that side of health care — and is already studying for the MCAT. Her goal is to go straight to medical school after graduating from Emory.
“I did what I had to do to get myself to this point, to where I'm not extremely stressed out, and I’m not picking a major or completely changing career paths or things like that other students may be facing,” she says. “So right now, I like to enjoy the beauty in every day.”
Mason (far right) with members of Emory’s Zeta Phi Beta sorority chapter.