UWM helps student build a better life and see the beauty of Milwaukee

College was not something Hidayah Osman imagined for herself.

She and her sister spoke very little English when they entered ninth grade together at Lynde and Harry Bradley Technology and Trade School in Milwaukee after coming from Malaysia. Their parents had fled Myanmar and lived in Malaysia — where Osman and her siblings were born — until the U.N. Refugee Agency helped them resettle in Wisconsin.

As their English improved and they began to succeed in their classes, the sisters’ guidance counselor suggested that they consider college.

“We didn’t know all of the opportunities that were available to us,” Osman said. “He showed us that we could actually go to college.”

Because she enjoyed design classes at Bradley Tech, Osman’s counselor suggested she study architecture at UW-Milwaukee. He also helped her apply for scholarships. To her surprise, she was awarded a John P. and Tashia F. Morgridge scholarship, which covered her tuition and housing at UWM.

The summer before her first semester, Osman participated in UR@UWM, a monthlong program that introduced her to undergraduate research. She worked on the Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School, a project of Arijit Sen, associate professor in the School of Architecture & Urban Planning.

Osman enjoyed working with other student researchers. When Sen invited her to become a long-term member of his research team, she said yes. It transformed her college experience.

“Undergraduate research led me to a whole different path,” she said. “Without it I would have been a student who just went to classes and to my dorm to do my homework, get my grade.”

Instead, she visited urban gardens around the city, collecting oral histories from people who tend vegetables and flowers there. One of her tasks was designing a cookbook of recipes from people with plots at the Cherry Street Community Garden.

“I was able to discover different parts of Milwaukee and see the beauty of them,” Osman said.

She has also deepened her language skills at UWM, working toward a minor in Chinese, competing in Chinese language competitions and completing two study abroad programs in China.

“I would love to be an architect that works in different languages and cultures,” she said.

She has one year left of the five-year Bachelor of Architecture program and is considering graduate school. Osman knows her 15-year-old self would be proud of how far she has come.

“She would think, ‘She is flying out of the country on her own. She is seeing other countries. She is grabbing these opportunities and going out of her comfort zone,’” Osman said.  “I am much more comfortable with the unknown. I’m nervous sometimes, but I know I’ll get somewhere.”