By Sarah Smith

Northwest Mississippi Community College

SENATOBIA – Northwest Mississippi Community College Oxford campus student Conner Diamond of Oxford just finished up his sophomore year and has worked hard to become a top performing student. Diamond is on the general college pathway, but he hopes to become a physician assistant. He credits his family’s habits as well as his own to his success.

During his time at Northwest, he has been involved in various organizations including Phi Theta Kappa where he served as vice president of service, and Gamma Beta Phi as secretary-treasurer. He’s also been named to the President’s List four times, received a Presidential Scholarship, 2023 Phi Theta Kappa All-Mississippi Academic Team, Outstanding Student, and received the prestigious Leadership Scholarship at the University of Mississippi.

All of these achievements were part of lifelong learning from family, friends, experience and time.

“I come from a family of hard workers,” Diamond said. “My grandfather owned his own business, which was then run by my father. My mother is a radiologic technologist. My parents’ divorce forced both of them to start from scratch, but through my adolescence, I was able to witness them pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.”

Diamond explained that during his childhood his mother developed a rare knee disease that prevented her from walking for several months. This would result in the loss of her licenses and thus her career as a radiologic technologist.

“During this time, she was also struggling with complications due to her diabetes,” Diamond said. “My mom started from ground zero and eventually got her license back. Watching my mom refuse to give up, when she had every opportunity to, removed every excuse I could possibly come up with throughout my journey.”

Diamond is still working on developing those good physical habits that can keep him sailing smoothly through his life. He said his dedication and discipline is all about getting what needs to be done, done with no excuses or exceptions. He said he starts this by creating a list in his head every day of what needs to get done from most to least important.

“I never bargain with myself on if something needs to be done or not,” Diamond said. “I know what I want out of life, and that makes my thought process easy when it comes to getting stuff done.”

Diamond’s greatest advice for himself and others is to stop trying to control everything and give it to God. He’s actively working on giving up being a perfectionist, and surrender is how he found his calling to the medical field.

“Life is a lot easier as a child,” Diamond said. “I’m sure we have all heard that from our parents. It’s the same with God. If we allow ourselves to just be His children, then all the weight we attempt to carry each and every day is no longer our burden to carry.”