Inayah O’Neil

Scholarships make student’s ‘first love’ a reality

By Chelyen Davis

Inayah O’Neil’s path toward a future in computer science seemed set by fourth grade. That’s when she took a coding class through her elementary school’s gifted program, and it became “my first love.”

“I loved being able to create in a way that wasn’t about art,” O’Neil says. “You can create entire programs to carry out whatever you want. It’s the creative freedom in that, that I really embrace.”

Now she’s in her senior year at the VCU College of Engineering as a computer science major with a concentration in cybersecurity and a minor in data science, a path made easier by receiving five scholarships: the Black Alumni Council Merit Scholarship, the Beverly J. Warren Scholarship, the Greater Washington Partnership’s Emerging Tech Talent Scholarship, the VCU College of Engineering Prestwould Scholarship and the Wright Engineering Access Scholarship.

The scholarships have “taken a significant stress off my family and it’s opened a lot of doors, and there’s things I don’t have to worry about and I could just focus on my studies,” O’Neil says. 

She’s not the first in her family to go to college (her mother has a college degree) but is the first to be able to attend full time. 

“That’s a privilege nobody else in my family had … It’s made higher education a tangible reality for me,” she says. 

O’Neil’s fourth-grade discovery of coding was followed by a middle school Capital One coding competition. In high school, she joined STARS — Supporting Tech Achievement for Richmond Students — a VCU College of Engineering program that partnered with Richmond Public Schools and Bank of America to expand STEM opportunities to students in Richmond. From there her path to VCU was direct. 

O’Neil credits her mentors, like Engineering Career Services Associate Director Tonia Sharpe (B.F.A.’94), with pointing her toward the Rams Scholarship Hub to find opportunities to help fund her education. 

“Always check the scholarship hub,” she says. “Just apply, even if you don’t know if you’ll get it. It can never hurt to apply.”

To hear O’Neil’s mentors like Sharpe tell it, though, no one needed to push O’Neil to search out opportunities. 

“She’s proactive, she’s a go-getter,” Sharpe says. “Typically when I meet with her she already has her plan.” 

She says O’Neil works hard to write the essays and submit applications for scholarships. 

“She knows the importance of taking full advantage of the resources, and that’s how she’s been successful,” Sharpe says.

O’Neil is also in the Honors College, participates in the VCU Transform living-learning program, and volunteers with the Barton Heights Youth organization. She also serves as a student director this year of the Emerging Leaders Program, for which she receives scholarship support, working with a co-director to organize the program. 

“Inayah absolutely has an ambition about her,” says A.D. Gabriel Driver, coordinator of the Emerging Leaders Program. “She comes with this go-getness that is ridiculous in the best of ways.”

O’Neil joined the ELP in her first year as a student, and then applied in successive years to become a mentor and now one of two student directors this year. In each year, Driver has been a teacher and mentor to her. He said that while the program teaches leadership skills, each student chooses how they apply those skills to the mission and to their relationships with others.

“One of the things I’m proud of that I get to witness ... is how she has chosen to grow her capacity for connectedness,” Driver says. “More than her drive, what sets her apart is her capacity to care. The fact that she cares about the people she is leading says more than her skill set to lead.”

In her role as student director with the ELP, O’Neil creates a curriculum for the program’s students. She credits that with helping her discover what she wants to do when she graduates in 2027 with an accelerated master’s in educational leadership. 

“I would actually like to teach computer science at [the] collegiate level. We have a very diverse group of professors here, and I would like to join them,” she says. “I enjoy communicating information to people, when they get the light bulb above their head, they understand it.”

She remembers how that felt, back in fourth grade, how it motivated and excited her. And she also remembers how, when she took coding classes in middle school, most other students didn’t look like her as a young Black girl. One of her goals as a teacher is to create outreach programs that provide STEM education at no cost, making those classes more accessible for more students. 

That, O’Neil says “would help change the makeup of STEM programs and classes,” bringing more lightbulb moments and getting the next generation of young girls excited about a STEM future.