Crossing the finish line

Computer science major Nadia Salem celebrates graduating after 26 years at CSUB

By California State University, Bakersfield

November 14^th, 2022

Nadia Salem knows what it means to persevere. She didn’t have an easy time in school as a child, and she knew higher education would be even tougher. Her physical and learning disabilities would likely make things harder, but she knew pursuing her degree was a challenge worth tackling, no matter how long it took.

This summer — 26 years after first enrolling at California State University, Bakersfield — Salem took her final classes and earned her bachelor’s degree in computer science. The long journey made crossing the finish line even more of a triumph.

“I have my diploma!” Salem, 44, said. “I’m so very proud! It’s hanging over my desk.”

Glenda Guizar — an academic adviser in CSUB’s School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering — helped Salem with her last few requirements needed to graduate. Guizar said Salem is a huge inspiration for her.

“Nadia overcame a lot of obstacles and through perseverance has accomplished so much already at CSUB,” she said. “Computer science is a challenging major, and it takes a great deal of determination and dedication to complete this degree. I’m excited to see what Nadia accomplishes next and I know that she will continue to exemplify what it means to be a Roadrunner.”

Originally from Los Angeles, Salem was put in special education as a child but didn’t find the help she needed to truly succeed as a student there and was not officially diagnosed with anything that might provide answers or a way forward.

Later attending a private high school with no special education programs, Salem was put in classes with her peers, which she feels helped her learn how to be a student. Only when she was in college was she diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder and multiple learning disabilities, which she would learn to navigate along with a few physical disabilities.

“I spent most of my life misdiagnosed with something or the other,” Salem said. “Asthma they said I didn’t have, chronic appendicitis. The seizures they thought were dizzy spells. It affected my ability to learn as well, because how are you supposed to learn when you’re not feeling well?”

When her high school teachers didn’t encourage Salem to go to a four-year university the way they did her classmates, her family’s support never wavered. Salem’s parents, both educators, knew she was capable of more than her teachers realized. Her mother, Janet Salem, said her daughter has always had strengths in not only math and sciences but for the arts too, writing poetry from a young age and learning violin and piano.

“Her achievements are numerous,” Janet Salem said. “She is a maverick for students with learning and physical disabilities. She defied the odds, and the best is yet to come. As parents, we set the goal for her to graduate from college, and her disabilities were only challenges to deal with but not to prevent her from achieving it.”

Though her parents fully supported her desire to go to college, they had initially hoped she would stay in the L.A. area. Nadia Salem had other ideas, though, and set her sights on CSUB.

“I like the fact that CSUB has a small campus, and there are not as many students as at other schools,” she said. “It has an advantage when you have a learning disability. I liked that, plus that it was far away from my parents gave me more independence. I just enjoyed the idea of the size of the school. That was the reasoning then, but now I just love the school.”

Throughout her years as a student, Nadia Salem had different majors, initially wanting to become a nurse and briefly considering a mathematics degree after taking some classes at Bakersfield College. Eventually, she found her place in CSUB’s computer science department, but only later did she appreciate the full circle moment her choice represented.

“I didn’t realize how much my future really was pre-planned for being in computers, because I actually learned how to use a computer in fourth grade,” she said. “When my mom got me my first computer, it was a DOS operating system. Floppy discs were just coming out at the time. I learned how to use everything on that computer; I learned how to type, I learned how to read.”

With money gifted to her to celebrate her graduation, Nadia Salem bought a new computer, something she knows will be an investment in her future as a programmer. She would like to create an app one day and already knows what she will do with the profits should it become a hit.

“I have a dream of making a scholarship for STEM majors who are disabled to encourage them to do it,” Nadia Salem said. “It’s not an easy field. It’s not just computer science that’s hard; all the STEM majors are challenging. If you’re disabled like me, don’t let it discourage you. Make it a strength.”

Now that Nadia Salem has graduated, that doesn’t mean she’s ready to pack up and return to L.A. Whether in app development, programming or any other job, she hopes to find work that will keep her in Bakersfield, which has become her home over the last 26 years. She still lives with her former dorm roommate, Kimberly, and has come to enjoy the independence in the life she’s made for herself here.

The degree that Nadia Salem now holds will open more opportunities for her, and she won’t soon forget the hard work that went into it.

“It takes a lot of courage and a lot of strength to do it but if I can do it, anyone can!” she said. “I have every problem imaginable that could stop me — physically, mentally, everything else. Keep going. That’s the advice I can give. If I can do it, anyone can.”