Theodore Bitew Demissie

Student

“Whatever I do, I give it all that I have. I don’t want to look back later and regret that I had chances and I blew it.”

Theodore Demissie believes in the adage “success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.” “This is my third year at SMC because I’ve had to work an average of two jobs while going to school,” says this citizen of Ethiopia. “I’ve been on my own since I was 17, and it’s going to be even more hectic for me now that I’m volunteering at UCLA Hospital. But I know I will be going to medical school, so I thought it would be good to start getting used to the hospital environment.”

Theodore has seen a good deal of the world, including two years of high school at Venice High. “My dad is on the board of directors for Ethiopian Airlines. So the family moved wherever he was stationed, including London where I went to school for several years. But I decided to stay on here when my dad decided to move back home: he’s very patriotic and nationalistic and he wanted to work in our country.” Theodore respects his father’s difficult decision and reports that he may one day follow him back to Ethiopia. “I’d love to go home some day, but it’s a very unstable situation,” he says. “There’s been a 30-year civil war going on that just ended. But it’s my hope to one day join the UN or some group and travel back home to help out.”

Theodore says that “I’ve spent some of the best years of my life at SMC and I will carry the memories of this place with me wherever I go.” One of the memories he’ll carry with him will be of a certain day this past February. “I met the President of the United States and had a picture taken of me shaking his hand,” he says. “I just mailed that picture to my family, and I didn’t even tell them about it. When they open that package,” he says with a chuckle, “they’re just going to be blown away!”

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