Growing up, she took inspiration from her ancestors who pushed toward their dreams, regardless of hardship. Her dreams became a reality through hard work, perseverance and her education at MBU.

Andrea Scott is a two-time, award-winning children’s author, business owner, bilingual instructor, educator and entrepreneur accomplishing all of this while still under the age of 30. She holds a master’s degree in teaching and currently teaches higher education, but she also has experience teaching many other grade levels, from pre-K through college.

When Scott was young, she did not have any role models to push her dreams toward reality. She was told she could not do things many times in her life. Growing up in a neighborhood with a high crime rate, Scott’s school became her “safe zone,” and her education became her priority.

“This mentality helped me to become the first in my family to graduate college,” Scott said. “The first person in my family to live in a different country, learn a different language, and start my own business from scratch.”

Scott founded a bilingual tutoring service, Smile Big, Dream Bigger LLC, to support her community and give tribute to her ancestors. Her business is St. Louis’ first and only black-owned bilingual tutoring program. It landed her the honor of being on the St. Louis Business Journal 2019 “30 Under 30” List.

Scott teaches Spanish at Harris Stowe State University and is the youngest faculty member at St. Louis’s only HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). She is also an award-winning bilingual author.

One piece of advice she hopes to leave her students and all young adults with is to never stop dreaming, even when things are going wrong.

Scott plans to turn her business into a global tutoring program to bridge the educational gap between African American and Hispanic scholars.