2024-25 President's Scholars

Katherine Priest

Arthur M. Berman President's Scholar

Major: Communication/Multimedia Journalism and Philosophy/Law and Society

College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences

Activities: President, Philosophy Club; President, Phi Sigma Tau; Treasurer, Society of Professional Journalists; Ethics Bowl Team Captain; California Center for Ethics and Policy Student Fellow; Pearson Campus Ambassador; Audio Editor, Poly Post

Eyeing graduate school, earning a J.D. and a doctorate in philosophy, Katherine demonstrates her tenacity in her academics and involvements. During community college, she discovered her a passion for serving communities in need of informational access and spent a year away from her studies in 2020 to pursue community activism through protests and sharing media literacy tips on social media. Energized by this
experience, she returned to college with a desire to be a spokesperson for social inequity issues to bring about meaningful change. Challenges to help her family while pursuing her studies strengthens her resolve to know that working through adversity has made her a stronger, more engaged student. “I have learned that it is your experiences that ultimately make you who you are and how we choose to rise above struggles show us who we truly are,” she says. Continuing her studies to understand ethics and politics and the most effective means to help marginalized communities, she embraces the dream that her grandfather sparked that she could be the first in her family to earn a Ph.D.