Harvard, Princeton and Yale, the three top universities in the United States, are among the 15 prestigious schools that have accepted Woodlands High School honors senior Mandi Nyambi.

The other top institutions that have opened their doors to Mandi include MIT, Northeastern University, Boston University, Barnard College, Boston College, Duke University, New York University and SUNY Pace, Albany and Binghamton.

            Mandi has not yet decided where she will be attending next September. She is sure that she will be majoring in Biomedical Engineering and Microbiology with a view to her ultimate career – becoming a cardiac surgeon. “I think being hands on will be fun,” she said. She chose that field because she wants to do something about heart disease.

            “Members of my family have died from heart attack, stroke and diabetes,” Mandi said. In her family’s native country Cameroon, (she was born in Belgium) Mandi witnessed first hand what cholesterol can do to the human body. “Palm oil is a very important part of their diet and that is very high in cholesterol. In the old days they could burn it off (with activities), but today they have a westernized culture and don’t.”

            Last year Mandi visited Cameroon and had a chance to work in a diagnostic laboratory. She saw specimens under a microscope and worked through several diagnostic procedures, of which she was already familiar having practiced them in biology and anatomy classes at Woodlands.

            “Mr. Sam Washington was an inspiration for me,” she said about the Woodlands science teacher who most influenced her. “He was my ninth grade Living Environment class teacher,” she said. “He is very health conscious. He made me aware of the right foods in any diet and what are junk foods.”

            “The teachers here play a big part in what students do in their lives,” she said. “They don’t want you to think like them, but you can take their ideas and expand on them. Our teachers are very supportive.”

            “Woodlands is a very open place, very accepting, very diverse,” Mandi said. “There are a lot of different kinds of people here coexisting and working together.”