The mission of the Laney College MESA Program is to support and empower underserved and underrepresented student populations to achieve success in STEM classes, degrees, and transfer.

Dream ∙ Achieve ∙ Soar

The vision of our program is to make Laney College a STEM destination within the Oakland community, one that fosters exposure, creates opportunity and provides resource access for promising STEM students. Additionally, our program hopes to engender a culture of giving back within and around our community to facilitate increased engagement in STEM and diversity within STEM fields.

MESA is an academic support program for students working towards a STEM degree at Laney College, with the intention of transferring to a four-year college or university. Our program provides comprehensive support geared toward student success, ensuring that each scholar engages in personal, academic and professional development, while pursuing an undergraduate degree. Ultimately, we hope to pave the way for students to enter STEM professions and, in turn, pave the way for students who follow in their footsteps.

Laney College’s MESA Program is part of a vast network across the state of California. Our community that has been in existence for over 40 years and includes MESA students in community colleges, universities, and professionals in industry.

MESA Team:

Email Address: alyssaarnold@peralta.edu 

How I Serve MESA: I provide strategic direction and oversight for the program to ensure that our staff create a warm, welcoming and empowering space for our students, so they feel a sense of belonging, competence and readiness that facilitates success at Laney and beyond. Additionally, I serve as the primary point of contact for the program and cultivate academic and professional partnerships to expand MESA’s network.--

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Name: Shawel Getachew

Title: MESA's Career and Experiential Learning Advisor

Email Address:  sgetachew@peralta.edu

How I Serve MESA:  

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Name: Donjhai Holland (DJ)

Title: Success Coach

Email Address: dholland@peralta.edu

Tutoring Subject Areas: Programming (SQL, Python, R), Math up to Calc 2, Statistics

How I Serve MESA:  I am here to help students in navigating non-traditional academic pathways into STEM and empowering them to explore opportunities for STEM-related research and internships!

About Me:  I am a SFSU Business Student Alum. After graduation I decided to shift career paths and am now currently studying Data Science and Mathematics here at Laney, with plans on pursuing a Masters in Biostatistics next Fall. 

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Our program pairs scholars with working professional mentors from various fields to provide students with an opportunity to gain valuable perspective as they explore academic and career options available to STEM graduates.

Mentor Expectations:

• Mentoring assignments are for 1 academic year (August – June).
• We request that mentors and mentees connect at least once a month throughout the academic year.
• Mentors should plan to speak with their mentee via video conferencing, phone calls, or in person, as able.
• We ask that mentors attend at least one MESA program networking event per year.
• The approximate time commitment for the MESA mentor program is about 10-15 hours per academic year.

Support for mentors:

Each mentor will be provided with a document that details program guidelines, instructions and suggestions to assist with relationship building.

All mentors will be provided with conversation prompts to help facilitate conversation, if needed; however, mentors are welcome to approach discussion more organically.

MESA will host two mentor program events per academic year to support community building.

Mentors apply here --->>>