Omar, you want to tell us a little bit about the advocacy day and what you've been up to?

Hi, I'm Omar Al-Gawi.

I'm a senior at Portage Northern High School and an IB diploma candidate.

So today, for Advocacy Day, me along with other students and IB teachers and coordinators are going around the offices of Michigan senators and representatives, asking them to support the resolution that will be presented by Senator Polanke and Representative Cozart to urge Michigan universities to allow S.L. credit for students and yeah this is a really meaningful cause for me just because obviously going into next year in my college plans having that credit is going to help with tuition and cutting down costs another factor is choosing my school for next year um financial factors are a huge um role in my in the decision making process so eliminating that pressure from the financial burden and focusing more on the credit that I will get and the academic opportunities at each school is something that I really hope other students don't have to go through if this hopefully gets passed.

So yeah, I think even for me, it can impact me as I go on to college.

So it's for the future generations and us too.

Omar, how about you? What's your diploma program look like? And how are you thinking it's going to parlay and maybe even what benefits have you already earned probably because of your involvement with IB Diploma?

My journey kind of started by hearing about IB classes through my brother who took mostly IB classes but never did the full diploma.