2022-23 President's Scholars

Hailey Peterson

Bernard and Lucie Bidart President’s Scholar

Major: Interpersonal Communication

College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences  

Hailey Peterson’s “insatiable passion” for learning was put to the test in high school when serious health challenges affected her school attendance and participation in activities. She found that education was the key to pushing through her challenges to reinvigorate her love of knowledge and the desire to use her experiences to aid others. Pushing through her health challenges by focusing on academic success, she completed community college coursework and entered Cal Poly Pomona as a 17-year-old first-year student with over half of her degree credits completed. She paid for her whole college tuition by establishing a pet care business. Hailey appreciates “the values and beauty of Cal Poly Pomona” as a “place of growth, a place of inclusivity, a place where students can flourish and cultivate not only our knowledge and skills, but ourselves as people to lift up others.” Watching the way her mother worked as a homeless advocate in the nonprofit sector, where “she made people feel heard and understood” inspired Hailey to choose communication as her field to also “spark genuine change.”