Omar El-Halwagi ’11 hopes to parlay his Harry S. Truman Scholarship into a law degree so he can specialize in employment discrimination or civil rights.
The Truman Foundation funds the $30,000 scholarships for students pursuing careers in public service. El-Halwagi is the first Texas A&M student to receive the honor since 1994.
Omar El-Halwagi ’11 is the first Texas A&M student selected as a Truman Scholar in more than 15 years.
Truman Scholars are selected on the basis of leadership potential, intellectual ability and likelihood of “making a difference.” El-Halwagi is one of 60 scholars selected from among 602 candidates nominated by 264 colleges and universities.
El-Halwagi, a graduate of A&M Consolidated High School in College Station, is a management and business honors major with a minor in communications. He is the president of the Texas A&M Speech and Debate Team and was the 2009 Pi Kappa Delta national champion in extemporaneous speaking.
El-Halwagi received All-American awards at two national speech and debate competitions. “All the speeches and debates I give are based on things I really care about,” he says. “I see it as a way to learn more about certain topics and to teach others about them.”
He has been the administrative coordinator the Freshman Business Initiative and has proposed and led his own special topics course for the Mays Business School. He participated in the 2009 China-U.S. Relations Conference, and has interned with the Federal Emergency Management Agency through the Public Policy Internship Program.
El-Halwagi co-founded Global Law Brigades at Texas A&M, and plans to take a group of students to Panama to work with a non-governmental agency. He also coaches middle school students in speech and debate and has volunteered in Teen Court.
He plans to take his Law School Admission Test in June, then he hopes to pursue a joint degree in law and social policy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In the long term, he hopes to build a career as an employment discrimination lawyer and, later, a public official.
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