The Oakland, California, teenager moved to the United States, From Fort portal- Western Uganda, in 2019, just before the world largely shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, where he attended his new school through Zoom and missed out on a big part of interacting with others and learning the nuances of the American culture. 

18 year-old, Helms Ategeka, a Ugandan migrant, has broken the internet after being accepted to 122 colleges in the United States with funding of upto 5.3 million dollars in scholarships.

The Oakland, California, teenager moved to the United States, From Fort portal- Western Uganda, in 2019, just before the world largely shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, where he attended his new school through Zoom and missed out on a big part of interacting with others and learning the nuances of the American culture.

He joined his father, Chris Ategeka, who had immigrated to the US from his homeland in Uganda in late 2000s to attend the University of California, Berkeley.

Helms told CNN that he applied to 150 schools, giving his best shot in the application process, and out of those, 122 accepted him with the 5.3 million dollar scholarships.

‘His father says he’s proud of Helms GPA and had hoped his son would pick a career with financial stability, like medicine or computer technology. Or maybe Helms might follow in his own footsteps as a mechanical engineering graduate from the University of California, Berkeley.’

With a GPA of 3.94, Helms Ategeka will be pursuing his dream career of becoming a pop star and has settled to join University of California, Berkeley to pursue a music degree.

Chris Ategeka told CNN, “He’s so confident that music is what he wants to do, it would be a disservice for me to try to guide him otherwise … that’s why he applied to a gazillion colleges to prove a point.”

The Ategeka’s further revealed to the American broadcaster, that Helms has always had a passion in Music.

“Helms’ life revolves around music. At Head-Royce High School in Oakland he’s part of an a cappella group that meets every week to belt out covers of popular pop music. His room is stacked with CDs by Beyoncé, Prince and Bruno Mars. Before he starts college in the fall, he’s taking a summer trip to Peru with a choir to perform in churches and communities,” CNN revealed.

So when he started his college application journey, he had one key requirement: The school needed to have a strong music program.

“I live for music. I spend most of my time either listening to music, making music or out there performing,” Helms says. “I feel the most alive and fulfilled when I’m doing something related to music,” Ategeka revealed to the American broadcaster.

‘He mostly used universities’ online portals for his applications, he says, which made it easier to copy and paste his information to multiple places. His father paid the application fee required by some universities. Helms spent many hours writing essays for different schools, although most were variations of the same personal story. In his essays, he highlighted his passion for music and his background as an immigrant.’

As an immigrant, Helms is part of a growing demographic. Children born abroad or in the US to an immigrant parent accounted for 58% of the increase in the nation’s college enrolment between 2000 and 2018, a study by the Migration Policy Institute shows. “The face of US higher education is changing,” the study says. “Students are more likely to come from immigrant families than in the past.”

Helms’ new chapter comes at a precarious time for US colleges and universities as Berkeley and other schools grapple with the aftermath of pro-Palestinian student protests that have led to disruptions, arrests and debates about the limits of free speech.

But Ategeka says his son’s journey has reminded him to be open to new possibilities and ways of thinking. He believes Helms will find appropriate ways to be a part of difficult campus conversations.

(Source CNN)