Transfer student Rakeb Tesfassellasie is making good on a high school promise to herself: study industrial engineering at Georgia Tech. Along the way, she’s also developing more accessible health solutions and receiving financial support through the Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship.
The prestigious need-based scholarship is specifically for students from a community college with plans to transfer to a four-year institution. Tesfassellasie, who transferred to Tech in Spring 2025 through the Regent’s Engineering Pathway, is one of 90 scholars selected from a pool of 1,600 applicants nationwide.
“It really is shocking, and it was a huge moment for me,” said Tesfassellasie. “To see myself among amazing classmates and colleagues is deeply affirming.”
Perimeter College and the Community College Innovation Challenge
Tesfassellasie began her college career at Perimeter College at Georgia State University as a dual enrollment student. After completing enough credits to graduate high school early, Tesfassellasie maintained her enrollment to continue drawing on her established network while earning credit.
Through her work with Janna Blum, an associate professor at Perimeter College, Tesfassellasie met fellow students Sophia Bereket and Shalom Ejiwunmi. Following mutual commiseration about how nerve-wracking pap smears can be, they developed Gorginea Care, which aims to provide more accessible testing tools for cervical cancer screenings. Using the women’s engineering expertise, they developed a prototype for a smaller speculum to be used in pap smears.
Tesfassellasie and her teammates then entered Gorginea Care into the Community College Innovation Challenge (CCIC), a national competition where community college students use STEM principles to pitch solutions to real-world problems. Gorginea Care went on to win the competition and earn a provisional patent for the speculum.
“CCIC gave us a voice for this project,” Tesfassellasie said. “I knew this project could change lives, but seeing everybody’s reaction – people who never met us before, people who never heard about the product before – it gave us more of a confidence to continue with the project. I am extremely thankful to the National Science Foundation and the American Association of Community Colleges for their funding and support of programs like CCIC. It has been essential to my professional and personal development.”
Gorginea Care now continues its growth at Tech, where Tesfassellasie has enrolled in Idea to Prototype, and is working on an official patent application, design improvements, and customer discovery with mentorship from professor Saylan Lukas. Tesfassellasie also returned to Washington D.C. for this year’s CCIC as a panelist.
Advice for Staying Motivated, Transferring to Tech
Tesfassellasie’s work ethic is inspired by a desire for growth. She enjoys looking back at photos from a year ago and seeing what has changed and what new opportunities she’s come across.
“You can’t grow by staying comfortable,” she said. “Get used to being uncomfortable, and practice working through that discomfort.”
For prospective transfer students, she also recommends finding sources of motivation and dedication to fuel yourself through the application process.
“It’s helpful to have a dedication to get up every day and say, ‘Oh, I need to accomplish this today, and this is where I want to see myself,’” she said. “I think motivation is a great start, but dedication is vital. I would also say to find what’s important to you – what organization do you want to be in, for example – that gives you a little balance between social life, networking, and school.”
Tesfassellasie plans to use her industrial engineering degree for business and supply chain management in healthcare, building on her experience with Gorginea Care.
In addition to her work on Gorginea Care, Tesfassellasie was recently elected recruitment chair for Tech’s Society of Women Engineers and is also involved with Female Founders at Tech. As she continues at Tech, she’s excited to make new connections across the Institute and within the Cooke network.
“I’m looking forward to the Cooke scholarship weekend, which will be later this summer, and seeing how my experience at Tech goes with the support of the Cooke network,” said Tesfassellasie. “Generally, I’m looking forward to the next two to three years here at Tech. I’m excited to see what comes next.”
To learn more about transfer admission at Georgia Tech, visit the transfer admission page.