Hi, all! My name is Ashton Bliss, and I’m a 2017 HTA graduate! I lived on the island for almost six years, and I was a student at HTA for that entire time, starting in 8th grade. I moved to Oahu in 2012 because of my dad’s station assignment at Hickam Air Force Base. HTA’s style of independent learning helped me cultivate the passions and interests that have driven me my entire life.
Thanks to both my military background and the confidence I gained at HTA, I decided to go to college in Massachusetts at Mount Holyoke College. Mount Holyoke was great because, like HTA, it was a small school, so I really got to know my teachers and professors. This helped me to learn exactly what I was passionate about and dive fully into it. I majored in political science and German studies, which let me really focus on European politics.
After graduating from Mount Holyoke in 2021, I went to graduate school at Virginia Tech at our Washington, D.C. campus. I was able to explore academic and professional European politics while completing my master's degree and learn that this was the field I wanted to be in.
