Kati's Pathway

Perseverance, passion to help people and academic expertise carried Kati Cegla to and well into the University of Minnesota’s Medical Laboratory Sciences (MLS) program.  But some simple arithmetic threatened to impede her upward path.

“I was still working but also taking out of my savings to finance my schooling,” Kati says. “I can do math.  My savings was not going to last.” 

A second job would be unsustainable. As one of the country’s leading MLS programs, its curriculum requires a significant investment in time and attention from its students.

“You have to be fully dedicated to it.  It’s like a job,” says Kati. “No matter how hard it is we still want to be the best scientists we can be. We don’t want to be released in the field unprepared and the Program won’t do that to us.”

Kati also couldn’t afford to enter the workforce with an oppressive debt load.  Toward the end of last year, she learned of a resource to provide a way forward:  The Pathways Scholarship, a new grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) for students in the University’s MLS program.

“I started screaming and crying when I opened the acceptance e-mail. I was working from home in a call center.  There was no way I could study on the job. I was able to quit my job,” she says. “(The Scholarship) saves me so much time and anxiety. Now I have a much calmer sense of security to be able to study. The fact that someone believes in me enough to invest in my education is not something I could have dreamed of in 2020.”

Here are the specific qualifying guidelines for University of Minnesota MLS students to receive funding from The MLS Pathways Scholarship, and descriptions of the many other scholarships that students in the MLS program can apply to receive.

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