{"id":132715,"date":"2017-12-15T09:54:18","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T14:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=132715"},"modified":"2023-06-27T13:06:29","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T17:06:29","slug":"student-athlete-strong-mamadou-diarra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2017\/12\/student-athlete-strong-mamadou-diarra\/","title":{"rendered":"Student-Athlete Strong: Mamadou Diarra"},"content":{"rendered":"

UConn\u2019s student-athletes are often lauded for their on-field or on-court achievements, but there\u2019s an equally important \u2013 often unseen\u00a0\u2013 dimension to the student-athlete. UConn Today’s Student-Athlete Strong series highlights the academic prowess of selected high-achieving student-athletes and provides an inside look at their lives beyond their sport.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mamadou Diarra \u201920 (CLAS)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hometown and high school:<\/strong>\u00a0Queens, New York; Putnam Science Academy<\/p>\n

Sport:<\/strong>\u00a0Men\u2019s Basketball, Forward<\/p>\n

Area of study:<\/strong>\u00a0Urban & Community Studies<\/p>\n

Anticipated graduation:<\/strong>\u00a0May 2020<\/p>\n

\n

I want to be able to say I\u2019m the first one in my family to earn a degree and graduate from a prestigious university like UConn. — Mamadou Diarra<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Did you have a teacher or academic mentor who was especially helpful to you during your K-12 years?
\n<\/strong>Mr. Furnel was my accelerated writing teacher my freshman year of high school. I really enjoyed his class\u00a0\u2013 he taught me a lot.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

You had to sit out last year \u2013 your freshman year \u2013 because of an injury. How did that affect your academic work? How did you stay positive?
\n<\/strong>It gave me an opportunity to pretty much just focus on school and get the hang of college.<\/p>\n

What academic accomplishments are you most proud of so far?
\n<\/strong>Being on the National Honors Society in high school was a big accomplishment for me.<\/p>\n

Time management is always an issue for student-athletes, especially during the season. What are some of your strategies for getting everything done?
\n<\/strong>I just try to take advantage of the study hall hours we are provided, and on my free time just focus on my school work before anything.<\/p>\n

What does it mean to you to earn a degree?
\n<\/strong>A degree is extremely important to me because I want to be able to say I\u2019m the first one in my family to earn a degree and graduate from a prestigious university like UConn.<\/p>\n

What are you going to major in? Why did you pick that major?
\n<\/strong>My major is Urban and Community Studies. I picked this major because I’m from an urban area [Queens, New York] and it teaches me why different parts of places are the way they are. Also the major covers a wide range of material, so I feel like I can learn a lot in this major.<\/p>\n

What has been your favorite class so far and why?
\n<\/strong>My favorite class I\u2019ve taken so far has been sociology. That has been my favorite class because it taught me to see things from a different perspective. Instead of looking at societal problems from an individual perspective, it teaches you to look at things as a whole and see the similarities throughout society.<\/p>\n

What does it mean to you to be a Husky?
\n<\/strong>It\u2019s just an honor to be a Husky. There\u2019s been a ton of tradition that\u2019s been passed down through generations, and just being able to represent this university is an amazing feeling.<\/p>\n

If you had the opportunity to meet any professional basketball player, who would you choose and why?
\n<\/strong>If I could meet any player it would probably be Lebron James. I just respect the way he carries himself, and from the age of 18 how he handled the scrutiny of everyone but continues to prove the world wrong.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘It\u2019s an honor to be a Husky. There\u2019s been a ton of tradition passed down through generations, and just being able to represent this university is an amazing feeling.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":132520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1712,2226,156,2225,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-132715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-clas","category-profile","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life","series-student-athlete-strong"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-26 00:40:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132715"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132753,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132715\/revisions\/132753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/132520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132715"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=132715"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=132715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}