The Transformational Scholarships Program, established in 2021 in the College of Education by a charitable grant from the Anonymous Trust, just sent off its first full group of graduating students. The program enables students from eastern North Carolina to study at NC State and then return home to teach elementary, middle or high school. 

We talked to a couple of these future educators before they hit the commencement stage May 9 to officially turn their tassels. 

Laura Bostic: Making Your Own Wolfpack Story

Laura Bostic is part of the first cohort of Transformational Scholars and she is exactly the type of student in mind when the program was created. Bostic grew up on her family’s farm in Duplin County and now, armed with her degree in mathematics education and a minor in agriculture business management, she’s ready to give back to the home she loves so much.

“We’re the underdog,” said Bostic about eastern North Carolina. “But we step up and show out regardless. We know how to make a lot out of a little, and I love our community.”

Initially, Bostic wasn’t sure about attending NC State, conscious about the cost of tuition. But when her mother heard about the Transformational Scholarships Program, she urged Bostic to apply. Receiving the scholarship sealed the deal. 

“NC State is where I was meant to be,” she said. “The Transformational Scholarship gave me the push I needed.”

Bostic is excited to put her own touch on the classroom and help her students with a subject that she says didn’t come naturally to her. Teaching from “the shoes of struggle” is a challenge that Bostic is ready to take on. 

She has faced lots of challenges since starting school, especially struggling with the adjustment to campus life in her first year. It took time, but eventually Bostic realized that her journey didn’t have to look the way people expect college experiences to look. Once she started going home on the weekends to be with her family, NC State became the perfect fit. 

“Everyone should reach their degree the way they need to, without being worried about fitting the mold,” she said.

Once Bostic started doing college her way, everything else fell into place. She found lifelong friends and professors that invested in her, people she’s going to miss having nearby now that she’s graduating. Her professors were especially kind, reminding her of people from her own hometown. 

One way she built this community was through the Transformational Scholarships Program. The program also offered regular professional development speakers, which was formative for her as an aspiring teacher. 

While she’s going to miss football games, her college friends and opportunities the program offered, Bostic is ready to settle back at home, start her career and get married to her high school sweetheart this summer. She’s ready to bring home all the knowledge NC State gave her these past four years. 

As new students prepare to start their NC State journey this fall, Bostic reminds them to make their own story: “Do college the way you need to. Eat. Have fun. Take care of yourself.”

Josh Webb: English Educator Extraordinaire

Josh Webb ’26 is another new NC State alum who benefited from the Transformational Scholarships Program.

Webb is eager to return to teach in his native Nash and Edgecombe counties — he’s from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, which straddles the county line — and help spur on social change through the power of language.

“English is all about the human experience,” Webb said, “and I wonder if there is a way that we can teach it with such conviction and such excitement that folks will kind of gravitate toward it, but also recognize all the woes in society and work toward just a better society in general.”

To that end, Webb not only majored in middle grades education with a concentration in English language arts and social studies education (College of Education) but also minored in English (College of Humanities and Social Sciences). This blend of training will greatly benefit his future pupils — just like it already has Webb.

“When I saw [the Transformational Scholarship] and applied, I immediately knew that NC State was the university for me, because not only could I graduate debt-free, but I could also be part of this cohort of future professionals,” Webb said. 

One of Webb’s most impactful experiences in the program? Studying abroad.

“They took us to Costa Rica — all expenses paid — because in eastern North Carolina, there’s a large Hispanic population, and they wanted us to take some intensive Spanish courses,” Webb said. “I didn’t quite know I was getting [all of this] out of the program, but I knew that I would get some really cool experiences.”

On campus, Webb was a member of NC State’s Students Advocating for Youth, or SAY, Village. This living and learning village is dedicated to connecting university students with underserved K-12 students in the Wake County Public School System for after-school mentoring. He joined Kappa Delta Pi, an international honor society for educators, as well.

Webb didn’t just take part in these natural educator communities, though. He also went out and built new ones for himself, from volunteering to serve in student government as a senator and then as an assistant director, to working with the College of Education to restart its Queer Educators Alliance.

All of this has reaffirmed Webb’s deeply held belief that the strength of the Pack, and every other pack, really is the wolf. By treating students as individuals and working with them to become their best selves, he hopes to instill the Think and Do mindset in everyone he teaches in his upcoming career.