Every day last summer, Steven Vaughn-Lewis would update his Facebook status: 64 more days . . . 63 . . . 62 . . . counting the days "until Penn."
What one freshman year will do.
Today, the tall and lanky 19-year-old who had barely left his Strawberry Mansion neighborhood has his sights on visiting China, a career in international affairs, and, at last, a driver's license.
For Steven, the University of Pennsylvania opened doors in ways this former foster child never imagined.
"I'm kind of amazed at how everything turned out," he said in his easy, soft-spoken way.
"Coming into Penn, a lot of people saw my background and worried, hoping I might be able to make it this far. The fact that I did makes me feel really accomplished."
Already, the kid who was guided by so many on his way to college is working to give back.
This summer, as head of his fraternity's philanthropy committee, he'll go to a weeklong leadership conference in Albany, N.Y., hoping to come back with ideas and strategies to really make a difference.
"I just don't want to go out and plant trees," he said. "I want to actually plan an event that's going to benefit a lot of people continuously" - maybe a tutoring program, he offered.
Long term, his plans span the globe.
At a recent book signing, he met Bangladeshi economist and banker Muhammad Yunus, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for developing microcredits - loans given to aspiring entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.
"His bank has millions of customers!" says Steven. "When I see that, I want to do something like that. Like, wow. He took what he learned and was able to benefit so many people. Stuff like that inspires me."
When Steven was little, with his mother suffering from mental illness, he was at times homeless, out of school, and in foster care, until his grandmother rescued him when he was 8.
A series of mentors also stepped in. An elementary school counselor recommended Masterman, where Steven maintained a 4.0 grade-point average and earned a full academic scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. He aimed to become a surgeon.
"I knew it was going to be tough," he said, "but I felt I would be able to rise up to the challenge."
As it turned out, Steven's biggest challenge was staying awake.
Premed, he loaded his first semester with science courses: chemistry, chemistry lab, neurobiology, and psychology.
After school, he took the bus to the Microsoft School of the Future, where he worked 22 hours a week as an administrative assistant, a job he's had since ninth grade, to ease the strain on his grandmother's fixed income.
He'd return to his campus apartment and study, sometimes until the sun came up.
"There were times when my stress level was through the roof," he remembered.
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