Mystie Thongs came to Cornell to get a good education in geology.

When she graduates Sunday -- with her whole family visiting from Trinidad for the occasion -- that will be, perhaps, the least of what she has achieved.

Kevin Stearns/University Photography

Mystie Thongs, in Snee Hall.

Thongs chose to study earth and atmospheric sciences (EAS) because it was a happy compromise: an aesthetic, description-based field that would satisfy her parents' wish that she be a scientist, while fulfilling her own desire to write and be creative.

There was the issue of fieldwork, often involving slogging through mud and scrabbling up hilltops -- neither of which are easy things when you depend on a hand-operated wheelchair to get around. (Thongs began using a wheelchair at 15 after a tumor in her spinal cord damaged the nerves to her legs.) But she accepted the challenge gamely. "I'm very adventurous," she says. "Obviously."

Still, she didn't anticipate the previously unimaginable workload; the exhausting treks around campus; a bitter cold unknown in Trinidad; and snow, which makes getting around difficult even for the perfectly mobile.

Then, in 2003, her hands began to hurt from severe tendonitis, caused by operating the wheelchair over rough ground. She kept working, hoping the pain would go away. Instead, her hands gave out completely. "I thought that would be it," she says. Unable to function on her own, she went home to Trinidad on a leave of absence.

But in 2004, she was back. "It never occurred to me not to finish," she says. "It's my biggest fault and my biggest strength. I don't know how to quit."

She does know how to accept help, though. And she is grateful for every bit of it. "There's a lot of humanity and caring here that people miss," she says. "That's the thing I wish more students would realize here."

Persevering, for Thongs, meant adjusting her sights a little. On a campus where everyone seems to be an overachiever, she learned to set her own realistic goals. She learned to be herself, and to be happy.

"Although I've known Mystie for nearly six years, every time I see her I am still struck with admiration," says Terry Jordan, EAS chair and Thongs' adviser. "Mystie has been stoic about inconveniences, determined to overcome all barriers and steadfastly focused on her goal: to complete her Cornell degree. I am extremely pleased that she will be graduating, but I'm very sad at the thought that she won't be with us at Cornell any longer."

Thongs will go home to Trinidad now, where she has a government job waiting for her. She hopes to return to school in the future for a Ph.D. And when that time comes, she knows she'll be up for the task.

"Cornell has taught me so much, and I'm stronger for it," she says. "I learned to be so proud of myself."