Rising Before Dawn on a Journey to Empower Herself
At 3:00 in the morning, while most of the world sleeps, Selmawit Beyene is wide awake typing, reading, and learning. The silence of the early hours is her sanctuary, a rare moment to focus entirely on her studies before her day as a mother begins. For Selmawit, a student in the Business Office Administration program at UEI College in Chula Vista, success doesn’t happen between the hours of 9 to 5. It happens in the spaces she’s carved out with quiet determination.
“I prefer mornings,” she said. “When my daughter is sleeping, no one is there to bother me. It’s just me and my work.”
Originally from a different country, she came to the United States alone, with no family or built-in support system. But she brought with her a fierce sense of purpose: to create a stable, opportunity-filled future for her daughter. That purpose is what pushed her to enroll at UEI.
“I want to be in a position where I can help my daughter,” she said. “She will go to school, and I want to be there for her homework, her questions. I need to understand this world she’s growing up in.”
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Parenthood didn’t make Selmawit put her dreams on hold, but it made them grow bigger. She doesn’t just want to find a job; she wants to know she belongs in the room. That’s why she wakes before dawn to study. That’s why she pushes herself to earn awards in attendance and academics. And that’s why she looks in the mirror today and sees a woman transformed. “Before, I wasn’t sure of myself,” she said. “Now I see my achievements, and I know I can do more.”
Her daughter is the heart of it all. Selmawit wants her child to see a mother and a role model. “I want her to learn to be strong,” she said. “To know that even without support, even when it’s hard, she can hold herself up.”
What makes Selmawit’s story unique isn’t just the challenge she’s faced, it’s the quiet power with which she’s faced them. Her goals after graduation are less about money and more about growth. “I want to keep learning. I want to become more educated, more confident in what I’ve learned.”
If she could go back in time, she knows exactly what she’d say: Start sooner. But in every way that matters, she’s right on time.
In a world that often tells adults that it’s too late to go back to school, Selmawit is living proof that with grit, vision, and a few hours before sunrise, it never is.
