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Sumayyah Yoonas planned to finish medical school long before her children started kindergarten, but, as she said, “Life has a way of taking our carefully drawn maps and scribbling new routes in permanent marker.”

Yoonas grew up in Dubai and immigrated to the U.S. in 2005 with her husband, Adnan, who works in health care administration. Yoonas put her dreams of being a doctor on hold to raise the couple’s three children.

In 2010 she passed the GED exam, which allowed her to start working as a pharmacy technician. She worked in that field to keep herself plugged into the world of health care as she raised her children, always determined to pursue medical school once her kids were older.

After 14 years, it was time. Yoonas enrolled at Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) in 2020, when she was 33.

“That first semester tested every ounce of my resolve,” she said. “As the pandemic raged, my youngest daughter was diagnosed with a serious condition that landed her in the ICU. There I was – navigating online classes for the first time while sitting beside her hospital bed, struggling with subjects like math that I hadn’t touched in over a decade.”

Amazingly, the pandemic that threatened to derail her education led her to her true calling. As a pharmacy technician, she became immunization-certified to help during the crisis. She worked at the vaccination clinic at St. Philip AME Church in Atlanta, where she administered shots to dozens of schoolteachers. Between injections, they would share stories about their classrooms and students.

“Something awakened in me during those conversations,” said Yoonas. “The desire to heal that had drawn me to medicine suddenly found a new expression – education.”

The notion that she should become a teacher made more sense with each passing day.

“It turns out that after years of managing three teenagers’ homework, schedules and attitudes, and also training new pharmacy technicians, I had unknowingly been in teacher training mode all along!” she said.

Yoonas switched gears and enrolled in GGC’s School of Education (SOE). Her carefully drawn map now had a new path leading her to where she was meant to be.

She fell into her studies with ease and excelled in her classes. She was selected as a resident through a Teacher Quality Partnership grant, was nominated for one of GGC’s Outstanding Student Awards and was featured in SOE’s newsletter for implementing AI in her teaching practice. Her 4.0 GPA earned her a Kappa Delta Pi Honor Society membership.

“These opportunities weren't just lines on a resume – they were affirmations that I had finally found my path,” she said.

Yoonas and her family will celebrate another milestone when she receives her diploma May 10. Her oldest son, Asim, will graduate from Peachtree Ridge High School two weeks later.

“After he upstaged me by being born one day before my birthday 18 years ago, I finally get my moment back!” she said.

Yoonas said looking back on her journey fills her with gratitude for her family and faith.

“I realize the journey that seemed so interrupted – from the U.A.E. to America, from medical aspirations to teaching, from mother to student, and back to mother – wasn’t interrupted at all. It was simply taking the time it needed to unfold as God planned.”