2021-Basit Balogun
My time at Lafayette was in search of America’s blue. Blue waters. Blue skies. Blue passport. Being undocumented meant always straddling the line between legal and illegal. My story could be read as that of a hardworking Posse Scholar from New York graduating with a dream Goldman Sachs job in hand – perhaps the Lafayette Ideal, an incredible privilege. But privilege is the blindness of luxury. And the luxury I afford is as a result of work – way beyond what should be required for any student to succeed.
My Lafayette story was the surgeon’s blue coat. Due to an unexpected heart attack, I had to take my first spring semester off, leaving me with no choice but to overload classes in order to graduate in 7 semesters while still maintaining a high academic standing.
Recognizing the unusually heavy exertion required from people in circumstances like mine, I invested my time into building pipelines for my peers that ensure meaningful success in their academic and professional careers. Whether it be a 13-hour CS150 tutoring marathon almost every weekend this semester or all 3 undocumented students who I have helped secure college admissions in the past month, my efforts have always been centered on lightening the load some have to unduly carry on their path to success.
My Lafayette experience concludes with the untiring blue of the Venmo notification banner. I co-founded Undocufund Lafayette, in an endeavor to create an endowed fund to provide sustainable systemic support to people like myself, raising almost $10,000 to date.
While I have so much to thank Lafayette for, I hope that in the future, students with backgrounds like mine can encounter less of the blue of doctor’s offices or documents, and can instead wear their maroon college sweaters without the anxieties of another color in mind.
Academic Activity/Award 1:
Posse Foundation Full Tuition Leadership Scholarship|4|The Posse Foundation Scholarship is a four‐year, full‐tuition merit and leadership based scholarship awarded to student leaders during their senior year of high school. During the first two years of college, we had weekly group meetings and bi-weekly mentor meetings targeted at honing leadership & team building skills and cross-cultural communication.
Academic Activity/Award 2:
Dean’s List: I have earned the Dean’s List 3 semester out of the 6 semesters I have been at Lafayette.
Academic Activity/Award 3:
Dr. Eugene Deloatch ’59 First-Year Academic Achievement Award|1|This award is granted to first-year students studying engineering and science with the highest GPAs.
Academic Activity/Award 4:
Carolynn Van Dyke Prize – Research|1|Awarded the Carolynn Van Dyke Prize for a nontraditional learning experience where I did research focused on creating a career roadmap for young African technologists.
Academic Activity/Award 5:
Alpha Alpha Alpha Honors Society|3|Member of the National Honors Society for First-Generation College Students. I was inducted in Spring 2019.
Academic Activity/Award 6:
Computer Science Department Teaching Assistant|1|Served as a teaching assistant for Data Structures and Algorithms (CS 150) during my sophomore year.
Academic Activity/Award 7:
Upsilon Pi Epsilon Honors Society|1|Member of the only existing international honor society in the Computing and Information disciplines. I was inducted in Spring 2020.
Academic Activity/Award 8:
ACM Richard Tapia Conference|1|I was awarded the Tapia Scholarship in 2020 to attend the conference. The scholarship allowed me to participate in the premier conference for people of diverse backgrounds in computing.
Campus Service Activity /Award 1:
Student Government Academic Affairs Director|1|I joined the academic affairs Committee as a chair during my junior year and assumed the role of director for the spring semester. Under my leadership, the academic affairs committee helped the computer science department combat the issues of limited class spots for students, reached out to the administration to implement a Pass/Fail policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, improved printer accessibility for students in Rockwell, started the discussion on implementing an online add/drop system which the school went on to adopt, and many other projects.
Campus Service Activity /Award 2:
Lafayette College Board of Trustee|1|I served as the only student associate on Lafayette’s Board of Trustee Committee on Financial Policy. In this position, I listened and gave a perspective on financial decisions made by the college’s trustees on topics such as, but not limited to tuition, financial aid, purchasing of real estate, and the financial health of the college.
Campus Service Activity /Award 3:
Muslim Students Association|3|Served as the Treasurer. Helped MSA develop systems for managing both external and internal funds. Organized multiple programs throughout my tenure. Designed the current MSA Logo.
Campus Service Activity /Award 4:
Hoff Awards Committee|1|I served on the Hoff Awards Committee in the spring of 2020 where I partnered with administrators in reviewing nominations for the award and selecting award winners.
Campus Service Activity /Award 5:
Gateway Career Ambassador|1|I joined Gateway as a Career Ambassador where I served as a liaison between students and the Gateway Staff. I help Gateway expose students to the numerous career resources available at the College. Outside of my official role, I have been heavily affiliated with Gateway Career Center throughout my time at Lafayette.
Campus Service Activity /Award 6:
Budget By-law Committee|1|I joined the committee in my junior year where we revamped Student Government’s Budget guidelines to ensure equitable access to resources and capital for all students and student organizations.
Campus Service Activity /Award 7:
ISA International Orientation Team|1|I served as a Peer Advisor for the International Student class of 2024 where I provided different forms of support to help the new students get acclimated to Lafayette. During this role, I also lead a financial literacy workshop tailored to the international student experience.
Community Service 1:
You Can Too Mentor|1|Provide mentorship and career development advisory to high school students who identify as POC. Lead biweekly mentoring sessions, utilizing the You Can Too organization’s material covering different areas ranging from societal issues to academic and college readiness topics.
Community Service 2:
Financial Literacy Training & WorkShops|2|Host Financial literacy workshops for different organizations and individuals. Collaborate with other organizations to create content focused giving people a better understanding of their financial health and sustainability. A significant part of this role includes creating materials such as Youtube content and slides specifically catered to the varying needs of the audience which involved a lot of research.
Community Service 3:
Coding Challenge Workshops|2|I have led programming workshops for 8 weeks every summer since my sophomore year to help computer science students prepare for coding interviews.
Community Service 4:
Newtown High School CTE Alumni Team|3|I serve on my high school’s alumni committee where I connect and guide students with the resources needed to get into college. I also provide career mentorship to some of the students in the STEM fields.
Community Service 5:
BrewU Ambassador|2|Volunteered to work with the Brew’s growth team to create and execute marketing plans that would get the Brew in front of new readers on campus. My main objective was to improve students’ access to news at no cost. The Brew refers to the Morning Brew, a daily newsletter designed for young business professionals.
Community Service 6:
Tutor|3|Dedicate at least 4 hours per week over my time at Lafayette to tutoring students in Computer Science and Math related Subjects.
Community Service 7:
Goldman Sachs Campus Ambassador|1|Collaborate with the GS recruiting team in finding talent and providing interviewing resources to students.
Community Service 8:
SEO Career Ambassador|1|I partnered with the SEO Career Program recruiting team to connect Black, Latinx and Native American students on Campus to career opportunities in Fortune companies.
Athletic Activity /Award 1:
Intramural & Club Soccer|3|I participated in intramural indoor and outdoor soccer from freshman year to junior year. My team won the intramural soccer championship twice during this period.
Athletic Activity /Award 2:
Intramural Basketball|2|I participated in intramural Basketball in my freshman and junior year. My team made it to the finals on one of those occasions.
Athletic Activity /Award 3:
Allentown United|1|Allentown United is a Soccer club competing in the US Pro Development Soccer League. After having a gruesome heart surgery during the spring of my freshman year which inhibited my ability to participate in competitive sports I slowly worked my way to attaining the fitness level needed to engage in sport at a competitive level. During the fall of my senior year I attained a practice-player position with Allentown United’s senior team. This experience remains one of my proudest achievements as I was able to overcome the physical, mental and emotional challenges that came with having a heart surgery.
Athletic Activity /Award 4:
Nike Run Club|3|I competed in different Nike run challenge competitions totaling over 200 miles. I also created a number of challenges on the platform where I invited students and friends to compete with me.
Athletic Activity /Award 5:
Intramural Esports|1|I won the Fifa competition in the Esports tournament during my sophomore year.
Special Interest Activity/Award 1:
Undocufund Lafayette|1|Co-founded the Undocufund in the summer of 2020 with Flor de Maria Selena Caceres Godoy ‘22 with the primary goal of bridging the resource gap between undocumented students at Lafayette and the extended Lafayette Community. We achieve this through fundraising, development, and distribution of infographics, and hosting and participating in conferences, summits, and other forums. We are currently working towards creating an endowed fund to provide sustainable support to undocumented students long after we graduate. We have raised over $9,000 to distribute to undocumented students at Lafayette and in the Lehigh Valley Community. Personally, I have and will continue to contribute a percentage of my income to the fund even after graduating.
Special Interest Activity/Award 2:
Goldman Sachs Internship|1|I Interned at Goldman Sachs Algorithmic trading team as an Engineering strats analyst in the summer of 2020 where I developed an analytics tool to visualize data from the algorithmic trading engines, allowing internal users to better understand and optimize the algos. Received a full-time offer to join the same team upon graduation.
Special Interest Activity/Award 3:
Dyer Center Business Pitch Winner|1|Co-winner of the Dyer Center Business pItch competition in my junior year where we pitched the CourseRegistrar platform as a business idea. My team also won the viewers choice award at the competition.
Special Interest Activity/Award 4:
LLC/Monroe Neighborhood Resident|1|Resided in the African house for a year. During my time in the house, we hosted a number of events focused on exploring diverse topics through different lenses focusing on africans and the african diaspora. Outside of the african house served as a community hub, where its residents focused on providing various forms of support to the international student community.
Special Interest Activity/Award 5:
Workrails Internship|2|I interned at Workrails Inc in the summer of 2019 where I designed and deployed an automated QA solution that monitors all customer frontend implementations, easing service management and maintenance. I rejoined the company midway through the fall of 2020 where I developed products that assist SaaS companies in automating the process of selling services with a primary focus on products that interact with SalesForce.
Special Interest Activity/Award 6:
Major League Hackathon|1|Lead a team of 4 Lafayette students to participate in HackNYU. HackNYU is one of the competitions in the official student hackathon league.
Special Interest Activity/Award 7:
CourseRegistrar|3|Coming off a missed freshman year spring semester due to medical reasons, I realized how painful it was to find summer and winter courses. During the Spring of my sophomore year, I began working on developing a platform which reduces the friction involved in the process of finding summer and winter classes. I worked alongside another Lafayette student to pitch the idea at the business pitch competition which we won. We are currently exploring different funding opportunities to develop and scale the platform.
Special Interest Activity/Award 8:
Common Core Instructor|1|I took on this role at Khan’s Tutorial where I implement standardized lesson plans to help improve student’s exam success rate. I specialized in subjects such as Algebra I&II, Pre-Calculus , Calculus I, Trigonometry, Chemistry and Physics.
Special Interest Activity/Award 9:
Gateway Center Career Tracks and Externships|2|I participated in Gateway’s Boston and New York Innovation and Technology Tracks between my freshman and junior year. I also participated in an externship through the Gateway Career center with Nuance Communications where I had the opportunity to shadow one of the Principal Technical Consultants at the firm. These experiences provided me exposure to different companies and people, paving the way for the start of my professional career.
Special Interest Activity/Award 10:
Aldo Group Stock Associate|2|I took on a role as a stock associate for Aldo group in their high intensity Soho, NY Store. I assumed this role during the first spring semester away from college and continued to work for the group on a seasonal basis until the spring of 2020. At Aldo, I was in charge of managing inventory and training new employees.