Awuor Onguru says that if it were not for her continued exposure to arts education as a child, she never would have gotten into Yale University. Growing up in a lower-middle-class family in Nairobi, Kenya, Ms. Onguru, now a 20-year-old junior majoring in English and French, started taking music lessons at the age of four. During her high school summer breaks, Ms. Onguru — who also has a strong interest in creative writing and poetry — went to the United States, attending the Interlochen Center for the Arts’ creative writing camp, in Michigan, and the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio. Ms. Onguru, who recently returned to campus after helping organize Yale Glee Club’s spring tour in Kenya, hopes to become a journalist after graduation. “But they found places to express themselves, found places to be creative, found places to say things that they didn’t know how else to say them.”

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