Walking through the Laney College Quad is an experience in diversity. Students from all backgrounds walk the Quad with the ease, purpose and familiarity common to college campuses around the world.
The Citizen chatted with three students in the quad on Aug. 23 to find out what brought them to Laney College. These students originated from places as far afield as Nigeria, and as close to home as East Oakland.
Collins Ani
Sitting on a bench in the quad, Collins Ani enjoyed the shade of a tree and browsed on his phone for high performance laptops that would fit his budget and satisfy the technical specifications for his upcoming Computer Science class. After immigrating to the U.S. from Nigeria in 2018, Ani became a fully naturalized U.S. citizen. He has moved around the country, from Washington, D.C., to San Lorenzo, CA, to Fremont, Hayward, and finally East Oakland.
Drawn by the presence of a small but thriving Nigerian Community, Ani settled into work as a Warehouse Team Member for Amazon and found Laney College on his mission of completing an undergraduate degree in Software Engineering.
Ani enrolled at Laney in the summer of 2024. Having previously earned certificates as an Amazon Web Services Certified Solutions Architect, and a Google Cloud Digital Leader, Ani decided that Laney College would be the perfect setting to further his education and improve his value in an increasingly competitive technical employment marketplace.
Morgan Lear
Morgan Lear moved from Texas to Oakland 11 years ago. While he didn’t say what triggered the move, he did say that he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else in the world.
Lear currently works for a bagel shop in the East Bay. He said that he and his co-workers have talked about what work would look like 10 years from now with the advancement of artificial intelligence.
“As a society, we’ll have to decide what we think is the meaning of work,” Lear said.
Morgan is currently working to complete his Computer Programming degree at Laney College. He hopes his studies will net him a higher paying job and a better understanding of the implications of integrating technological advancements into the workforce.
Ashley Hunter
Ashley Hunter is Oakland born and bred, and a Laney College alumna. Her mother and her aunt are also Laney alumni, and so she is “connected to the city, by blood.”
“I love that Laney is downtown in the middle of the city,” Hunter said.
Hunter has earned certifications in Dance Therapy as well as Speech and Language Pathology at Laney College. Ashley is pursuing a certificate as a Registered Behavioral Technician in hopes of increasing her income in a healthcare labor market that’s currently desperate for qualified staff.
