Saying ‘yes’ and doing hard things scared
Senior Cynthia Obianuju Akanaga ’25 said, “Mount Holyoke changed my life. I’ve always been afraid of making the wrong choice, but being here helped me put that fear into a positive light.”
Cynthia Obianuju Akanaga ’25 ended up at ý College after stumbling upon it. One night in high school, when prepping for her AP English test, she saw a practice essay question that mentioned the College. The name alone piqued her interest, so she looked it up.
“I didn’t think it was a real place, and I’d never heard of a [gender-diverse] college,” she recalled. “But when I saw that it was located away from a big city in its own community — and how beautiful the campus was — I decided to apply.”
Akanaga took a similar approach to her time at MHC, intentionally immersing herself in topics, courses, clubs and experiences she’d never heard of or had the chance to explore before. That’s how she became a computer science major and eventually added a minor in statistics.
“My strategy [in my first] year was to pick classes that I’d never been exposed to,” she said. “I saw an introductory computer science class and thought I’d give it a try. It was amazing. Professor Melody Su was so patient. She walked through the concepts slowly and broke down each step seamlessly. Looking back on it, it’s the professors I had that kept me coming back to computer science and eventually declaring it as my major.”
Despite deciding to major in computer science, Akanaga was still unsure how far learning code could take her, but she was determined to improve her skills. She leaned on faculty office hours, asked her peers for guidance and joined organizations such as ’s Black Wings group — a place for Black women tech majors — so she could interact and problem solve alongside engineers who shared her identity.
Akanaga’s dedication to her craft led her to compete in a hackathon event where she and her teammates won the Best Use of Ecommerce award for a Pinterest-like website that encouraged Black women to share their style. She used the award as an affirmation to keep pursuing coding. From there, she helped organize hackathons to encourage critical thinking and problem solving using code and was even named on the .
She stumbled into statistics in a similar way after a friend kept talking about the wonderful experience she was having in class with Chassidy Bozeman. Having had such a positive experience with the computer science faculty, Akanaga decided to enroll in linear algebra, even though math was a subject that she struggled with.
“I fell in love with math when I took Chassidy Bozeman’s class,” she said. “Learning from her one-on-one during office hours was a gift. It encouraged me to keep taking more math classes, even if it challenged me.”
When she wasn’t in the classroom or getting support at office hours, Akanaga could be found on Mount Holyoke’s as a track and field athlete, where she ran the 200 m and 400 m races. She credits her four years on the team, her teammates and her coaches for the amazing experiences that helped her build discipline, structure and patience both on and off the field.
Learning to be patient with herself and her peers also came in handy as a MoZone Peer Educator. MoZone is a social justice peer education program led by students who provide hands-on training and facilitate interactive dialogues — often on the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion. Akanaga has been a MoZone facilitator since her second year and used her place as an athlete on campus to host dialogues for the athletic teams on microaggressions in sports — a topic she says many athletes may face during their time at ý but don’t often have the space to discuss.
“I loved getting to combine my experience as an athlete with my experience as a peer educator,” she said of the sessions she facilitated. “MoZone taught me how to communicate effectively. I’ve honed my voice by being in the organization and learned to advocate for myself with other students, faculty and staff.”
As her journey at the College comes to a close, Akanaga says it has been the people who have truly shaped her experience — from faculty to teammates and friends made in the residence halls and at social events. What she’ll miss the most is their willingness to help her through difficult concepts in class, converse with her on subjects they are passionate about or offer encouragement when she is unsure of herself. In the fall, she’ll be moving to Dallas, Texas, to join Bank of America as a software engineer — a role she never dreamed she could have.
“Mount Holyoke changed my life,” she said. “I’ve always been afraid of making the wrong choice, but being here helped me put that fear into a positive light. Over the last four years, I threw myself into things I knew nothing about, and so many of them served me well. I thought computer science was something I’d do as a hobby. Now I’ve unlocked a career.”
