Adebukola Ajao

New Steps to Success Program Adviser Adebukola Ajao hopes to provide students with an idea of what it means to be successful in college and the real world.  Outside of school, she is a freelance journalist for the Huffington Post and runs her own media consulting business.  Although she has a lot of passions to balance at once, she still considers herself someone who likes to relax.

What is your role in the Steps to Success program?

My role as the Steps to Success Program Adviser basically is to guide students here at BHS who are low income students who live in Brookline’s public housing and help them through their time here at BHS in terms of their grades, academic success, college, job search, and really just help them throughout college as well and making sure they are having a holistic high school experience, while receiving the resources they need to apply to college and get in and get out.

What are your hobbies outside of school?

Outside of school, I definitely love to read, relax, drink tea and light up some nice candles, but I have my own media consulting business that I am starting up.  I am a freelance journalist, and I write for Huffington Post, Black Voices, I’ve had my work published in various places.  I’m actually working on a story right now with Teen Vogue and hopefully that will be out in the next couple of weeks.  I spend much of my time building brands and helping companies establish themselves in the media world.  

What does a typical day look like for you at the high school?

I’ve been here for basically two weeks now.  Not one day has been the same. Anything can happen here.  Of course, I come in on a day like yesterday when Trump becomes president elect and it was a little dreary in here, everyone was really down.  I love environments where I don’t have like a certain set thing to do everyday, like how most jobs are.  I really like this.  I’m still new, so I’m still getting to know students and teachers. I’ve been sitting in on classes. I’ve been running around the building finding my students, and I’m just getting used to being in a building that’s so big.  

How do you plan to help students at the high school?

I think I can be most helpful to students at BHS specifically in the steps program as being a representative of what it means to be successful in college and be successful in your life and career.  I think representation is so important. Young people need to see someone who looks like them, who talks like them. People don’t strategize and think about what is my purpose or what are my goals and I’m here to set that foundation, so people can learn how to be successful on their own.  We hold their hand through it, but the purpose of us holding their hand is so they can do this on their own at some point.