Interview with Akintunde Ahmad

The start of this year involved so many interviews that it will take me forever catching up to post them all. This is actually one of my favorites. For one, it's a highly intelligent discussion between two straight A students, one in college the other in High School and they discuss the difficulties and possibilities of making it to higher education in a city like Oakland, CA. Oakland, CA is one of the most violent cities in America today. It has long had that reputation although now it is getting better it is still on the top ten list. Education is difficult for young students who want to succeed in this city. The schools have practically no budget for anything that the students need and some of the teachers become so discouraged they don't give any impression of caring towards the students.

Akintunde Ahmad made big news a few years ago by getting a 5.0 GPA. He received many scholarships and chose to go to Harvard. The person interviewing him is actually my daughter, Naudika Williams. The reason we asked her to do the interview is because she has stayed receiving a 4.0 GPA (she says she could not get a 5.0 at Oakland High, the school she goes to because they don't have the same extra curricular programs that Oakland Tech has which Akintunde benefited from). Throughout Naudika's high school years she has been apart of many programs including Californian's for Justice, a program that challenges school boards to include student voice when deciding how they use their budgets.

Together, it worked really well. All of the questions Naudika asked was her own.