Politics Grad Works for a Bright Future

She credits her professors with making it possible.

“Just one interaction with one professor opened doors to each of these opportunities,” Biggs, a politics major, said. “It’s the professors who make USF what it is. Every opportunity I had is because of my professors.”

While at USF, Biggs was a volunteer mentor to inmates at San Quentin State Prison, while also mentoring first-generation students at USF, like herself, through the PACT program.

She worked as a research assistant to Professor Bill Ong Hing at the USF School of Law, supporting his work on African immigration, while also serving as a policy intern at the San Francisco Public Defender’s office.

And she co-founded EmpowerHer Ondo, an organization that provides educational resources to girls in rural Nigeria.

Biggs emigrated to the U.S. seven years ago from Emu-Uno, a small village in the Delta State in Nigeria. She is the first woman in her family to attend college, and that inspired her to co-found EmpowerHer.

While her mother ran a small shop, Biggs walked more than two miles each day to St. Lawrence primary school. “It was a privilege to go to that school,” she said. What she learned there set her up for college in the U.S., Biggs said.

Girls in Nigeria face barriers to education, including poverty, gender discrimination, and early marriage, she said.

With EmpowerHer, Biggs tutors girls, advocates against child marriage, and hosts informational meetings for girls and their mothers to highlight the importance of education. “As a result of our efforts, 12 girls are now enrolled in primary school” in Emu-Uno, she said.

At the same time, Biggs is committed to becoming a lawyer. Her work with Hing and in the Public Defender’s office, where she worked to advance criminal justice reform, inspired her to go to law school.

After commencement, Biggs will return to Nigeria to focus on EmpowerHer while she prepares for the LSAT and applies to law school in the United States.

One of her professors, Keally McBride, chair of the politics department, called Biggs “a remarkable woman.”

“I was so moved and impressed by [Biggs’] accomplishments,” McBride said.

As for Biggs, she quotes a Zulu phrase, “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu,” which means, “A person is a person through other people.”