Aseel Mohamad: Involved Student, Business Major, and Father

Aseel Mohamed is one of SUNY Broome’s many success stories. He immigrated from Yemen in 2009, and flourished through high school, to eventually come and make the most out of the SUNY Broome experience.

Aseel said his experience graduating from Yemen was “at first confusing, I was a little scared. I was in a new culture and I was only nine years old. I guess the worst part was the waiting until I started school, I was just bored. I was just stuck in the house up until school started and then that’s when things started to roll and then I loved it. I started in third grade, made a few friends, and just took off from there. I never had to look back about not feeling like I belong.”

In high school, Aseel started participating in student government, saying “all my years at Binghamton High School I was the student president, from freshman year up until graduation. By graduation I was the dual president, I was the president of the student government and I was still the president of my class. And then I was still involved in National Honor Society, I was the VP. I like to give back my time and to get involved.”

From there, once he arrived at Broome, Aseel said he wanted to get involved, so he served as a student trustee, and said; “It was a great experience, it’s like getting insider information of how things go, and understanding that you can get things done, it’s just a process.”

When asked why he came to Broome, Aseel said “I wanted to stay local and get my associates and then get my bachelor’s, and if I wanted to start somewhere, what's a better start than Broome?”

Aseel is a business major, but said “actually growing up I wanted to be in the medical field, so I took chemistry, and then I realized that wasn’t for me.” In high school, he received a business endorsement through the International Baccalaureate program, which helped put him on the path to studying business in college. That combined with his family's business pushed him to become a business major.

Together with his twin brother and his dad, Aseel helps run the busy Northside Deli and Grocery on Chenango Street in Binghamton, the only 24/7 grocery store in the area.

Aseel was fortunate enough to have received two scholarships, the Alumni Association Continuing Student Scholarship, and the Second Chance Scholarship. When asked how the scholarships affected him he said; “It made college easier. I didn’t have to think about ‘how am I gonna come up with money for the books?’ The awards helped set me up with an office when everything went remote. I try to keep all the money I get from the scholarships to make my college experience easier, smoother, convenient, and just help focus on my grades.”

Aseel credits one professor with helping him the most, Dr. Diana M. Petrolawicz, whom he had for Business Law I and Financial Accounting I during his first semester. He said, “She was just so helpful. Most of my professors were helpful too, but she just stood out to me.” He thinks having two classes with Petrolawicz helped guide him to success, saying, “I believe that most of my college success comes from having a really good first semester, and that’s when you carry the momentum on. Doing well in two of the classes of your first semester just helps uplift everything. So I’ll never forget about Mrs. P.”

Aseel said he would recommend SUNY Broome “In a heartbeat, without any question. It’s just the obvious choice if you’re a high school student and graduating. Especially if you want to stay in the area.” He claimed a majority of the students he graduated high school with that went away for college ended up coming back to the area. He said he believed “It’s really best to just stay because that would be a waste of money to go somewhere else just to come back here.”

After Broome, he says “the plan is to go get my bachelor’s from Binghamton University’s school of management, and then go on. Maybe get the master’s from there too.”

Aseel has a son, Asahd, who he said with a smile is “All over the place... he’s two, he’s starting to talk. He puts his head in through the curtain and says ‘what’re you doin’.” He said of the experience of being a father; “It’s amazing, it gives you an extra motivation. I’m a motivated person, but when you have a son, it’s a whole different perspective because he will be looking up to you, and then you can’t be short on one thing so you gotta do your best to set a good example, because when he gets older and gets to my age, I would expect him to go to college. I would expect him to graduate high school. I would expect him to do the things a father expects a son to do, and I can’t expect him to do those things if I never did them myself.” He said, at first, it was difficult balancing his time with school and bringing his son to appointments, but that his wife helps support him.

Aseel is thankful for his experience at SUNY Broome and said, “It’s more than meets the eye. If you get involved and you get going on campus it’s not just any regular community campus. I believe that SUNY Broome has more to offer. It’s really a great start… the packet you first get when you get in says “from here you can go anywhere”, and I take that literally. The possibilities are endless. If you come to Broome, get some good grades and get a college record going, it’s limitless to what you can do and where you can go.”

Originally published Spring 2021 in the SUNY Broome BROOME Alumni Magazine