|
From Algebra at Eight to Biomedical Engineering Student: Meet Mahmood Hassan, University of Missouri, Kansas City
This week GlobalMindED is featuring remarkable students who attended our June 2025 event. We are honored to highlight Mahmood Hassan, part of the 2025 First Gen class and student at our partner college, University of Missouri, Kansas City.
Tell us about your journey:
My story begins in 2005 in Boulder, Colorado, where I was born to two loving Egyptian parents. When I was young, my family moved around a few times due to my father’s work, eventually settling in the Kansas City Metropolitan area in 2017. Growing up, people always noted my selfless personality and deep care for others. I was fixated on being as positive an influence as possible on those around me. A large part of that fixation involved my dedication to academics. I switched to virtual schooling in 4th grade and, by the end of my first semester, at the age of eight, I was in Algebra I. I skipped 5th and 7th grades at my school’s recommendation, putting me as the youngest in my class in the following years. I switched back to in-person schooling in my junior year of high school, when I joined a specialized program for aspiring medical professionals, but COVID hit by the end of that academic year. I graduated from that program with High Endorsement, and then joined the University of Missouri–Kansas City.
I majored in Biology with a pre-medicine emphasis for two years, then switched to a degree in Biomedical Engineering. I have always focused on being continually involved in my community, and continue to do so now. I’ve served on the boards of several student organizations, both in STEM and in general student development, and on the Student Government of my university’s School of Science and Engineering. I’ve been active in my local community for several years now as well, serving in mosques and giving lectures. The most important aspects of my journey aren’t my successes, though. Rather, they were the struggles I faced in silence. Ever since I was young, I battled with my mental health. Since I was eight, I showed signs of depression— and it progressively worsened. My virtual schooling came at a cost, we became isolated and addicted to the internet. For the duration of my youth, I gave my all to make it out of the trap I was in. I finally got help and was diagnosed at 16, but the war wasn’t won. There were countless nights I didn’t think I’d make it through, but I did. At the end of 2024, I quit my medications and began fighting to rebuild my life on my own.
Today, I open up about what I’m going through to advise others—not from a pedestal, but from a shared platform. I work to be a light for others in the personal and professional sectors alike and an advocate for the concept that the two sectors are not separate but rather very closely related. I aspire to innovate, both in the Biomedical sector and outside of it, as someone focused on sincerity and real benefit.
What pivotal experiences shaped your current path?
People might expect that my most critical moments happened when I was seemingly on top of it all. They might think it was me getting put in advanced math classes and skipping two grades. Or taking my ACT from a 28 initial score to a 35 at fourteen. Or making A’s in classes where I was four years younger than my peers. Or becoming a university peer mentor to students who were older than me. Or when people applaud my public speaking. All of these things are blessings for which I’m grateful, and they did help build my confidence. But the most important moments of my life came when I was at my lows.
It was lying myself into a hole that taught me to be honest. It was every false assumption that taught me not to judge. It was getting called out for being arrogant that taught me to be humble. It was getting told to “lock in” when I was burnt out that taught me to take people’s advice with a grain of salt. It was surviving suicidal thoughts while putting on a smile that taught me that I’ll never really know what someone’s truly going through. It was feeling hollow when I was faking a persona just to fit in that taught me sincerity is the only thing that truly matters in this entire world. My proudest moments were never from the top— they were the fight to climb out from the bottom.
It was knowing nothing about vehicle engineering or workshop tools and still joining my university’s racing team. It was being so unfit my mile run time and bench press didn’t even appear on the charts but still showing up to the gym. It was getting laughed at and coming right back to the places I needed to be in order to grow. It was having a hundred thousand mistakes behind me but still choosing to do the right thing. It was having faith in a world that tells you that faith is delusion. It’s hard to list out all the experiences that made me because it would take a lifetime to write. But I want people to know that it takes a moment to change a life and it takes patience to build something real. It’s not just about the glorified mountaintops—it’s about every slip, cut, fall, and stall along the way.
What drives your desire to contribute and make a difference?
I derive my purpose from my faith— Islam. As a Muslim, I am taught the necessity of being sincere to the truth. It was my faith that kept me afloat all these years— I owe my life to it. All that I strive towards stems from my dedication to my religion. My outward and my inward fight— all for God. My dedication to being truthful, even if it doesn’t make sense in the moment— I get that from my purpose. I want to bring the best out of people. I want to help them realize that material gain without meaning is meaningless. I want to leave a world better than the one I found. And when I say “want,” I don’t mean it as a whim. I give this all I have.
Beyond your own journey, what are your hopes for your community, generation, or people?
I hope for a generation that comes back to what’s real. Today, so many of us live lives we either don’t really want or don’t know what to do with. We’re conditioned to tie our value to our results rather than who we really are. We lose track of reality, feel terrible, then drown in make-believe— be it technology, false perceptions, drugs, or sleeping our lives away— hoping that one of the escapes will solve something. I want the current generations, older and younger, to move away from this. To start connecting rather than assuming. To start being sincere rather than desperate.
I hope that we will come to understand that in our aptly named “information age,” there will be a voice for every idea perceivable and not every one can be right. That people will grossly oversimplify complex matters and grossly over-complicate simple matters until nothing makes sense to anyone and everyone’s stuck feeling lost— often for life. I want my generation to understand that there is right and wrong and there is a need for discipline on personal and societal levels. At the same time, I want them to understand that there will always be hope so long as we are alive and that we should be happy to be alive. That life is full of evil but we don’t need to live in the dark, because life is also full of light. I hope for hopelessness to finally subside. That the world will learn to stand for purpose and not property. And to be real. Together and always.
What is your highest hope for our democracy?
Honestly, my greatest hope for democracy is for it to evolve into something better than it is now. For many years, I have heard the take that democracy is far from perfect but it is “the best we have.” I believe that, as with every adaptive challenge, if we want to identify real solutions, we need to first identify the core issues, even if people find that to be unpleasant. No political system— no social construct at all, for that matter— will last if its constituents lack integrity. No matter what system we establish, if it does not connect back to a true purpose that functions for the greater good, then it will not succeed. I hope that our generation will be able to establish institutions, from the government down to interpersonal relationships, that have their strongest foundation in selfless dedication and honesty. That’s not to say that what we have is all bad— it’s just to say there’s a lot we can do to improve.
What role has GlobalMindED played in your personal, academic, or professional journey?
GlobalMindED was, itself, a pivotal experience in my life. Growing up, I always felt uncomfortable with formal gatherings. GlobalMindED was completely different and opened new doors in my mind and in my professional journey. I went in feeling nervous, unprepared, and unsure. I felt like I’d make a fool of myself or be a mess just because my resume wasn’t perfect and my LinkedIn wasn’t polished. But GlobalMindED taught me that if you are in the right crowd, the desire to be sincere and to genuinely improve is essentially all you need. You don’t need to be perfectly spoken. You don’t need to have a hero story or an aura of success. Among the real, you just need to be real. It has been almost a month since I attended the conference, and I am still connecting with experts who spoke there. People who I thought were way too far above my level to even give me a glance. I’m still trying to kindle the sparks I felt rising within me listening to people who actually made a difference fighting battles like mine. I met people who were just that— people. People who made a difference without fading into nothing but an image. People who want to help others grow— genuinely. People who want to build something real. And to me, that’s everything.
| 
