CEW+ commends Caitey’s resilience in continuing her education and exploring new paths and names her a Molly Hunter Dobson Scholar.

Caitey Robertson is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in environmental science with a concentration in geoscience at UM-Dearborn. After excelling in art in high school, Caitey initially chose to pursue this path and enrolled in art school; however, an intended short break from school to tend to personal matters became a permanent change in direction as Caitey worked and came to terms with the fact that she was no longer passionate about art and the future career path she had envisioned.

Six years later, government support for essential workers to return to school for an associate degree prompted Caitey to make a courageous leap and explore an entirely different path. Caitey enrolled at Oakland Community College and began taking classes in the sciences, ultimately earning her associate degree. Caitey has persistently overcome self-doubt and the challenges of being a returning student to further her education, and she is now excelling as a bachelor’s student at U-M. Her professor remarks that she has a remarkable “dedication to learning,” and that she has made use of every resource available to her to grow, including using computers on campus to learn R, a programming language for statistical computing and data visualization. As another professor comments, Caitey has “already proved that she can be a successful woman in STEM as she is among the best students in our Earth and Environment Discipline.” Caitey is committed to exploring new opportunities at U-M and building a fulfilling career on her own terms.

CEW+ commends Caitey’s resilience in continuing her education and exploring new paths and names her a Molly Hunter Dobson Scholar.