For Angie Meza ‘15, growing up just outside of Los Angeles in Santa Clarita, CA, provided her enough curiosity and inquisitiveness to look beyond her own region to attended college. Angie graduated from high school at age 16 and was admitted to the University of Oregon and SOU. Both she and her family thought SOU would be a better fit because of its size and the quaint location in Ashland, particularly because she was younger than most high school graduates.

Mylz Blake ‘17 has a unique coast to coast journey and entrepreneurial story to tell. Growing up in south central Los Angeles, he originally heard about SOU through football and visited Ashland the winter of 2012. After graduating from racially diverse Pacific Palisades HS, he made SOU his choice, which wasn’t an easy thing to do for a young black male.