Words by Tom Price
Photos by Skyler Greene

Christian Ayeni pauses for an instant before he speaks. He drops the bean and rice burrito he’s been clutching on the table before him and clasps his hands together.

“I was homeless,” he says as he leans back in his chair.

Ayeni, a 23-year-old mountain of a man, and a symbol of self confidence, smiles as if he’s recalling a fond memory.

It was midway through his freshman year at UC Merced when the Dallas, TX native was bounced from his on-campus housing after his mother failed to follow through on a payment schedule because of financial issues at home. He also had his Bobcat meal card revoked.

From February to May of 2005, the young bio-engineering major slept in his girlfriend’s car. And he used another friend’s car as a closet. He would only eat when his friends would eat so he could use their card. Because he couldn’t afford books, he says he was forced to study when his friends would study so that he could look over their shoulder.

“Honestly, for me it wasn’t that bad. It was still winter, so it was cold at the beginning,” says Ayeni, whose mother was able to repair the situation and get him back into housing a few months later. “I never felt like giving up, but I was just upset with the situation. I felt like many other students came from much more affluent backgrounds and were taking advantage of what they have been given.

“I feel like if I had been given the same opportunity ... what could I have done? It just seems a little unfair.”

But Ayeni made the best of his unfortunate situation and on May 15 he will graduate from UC Merced with a B.S in Bio Engineering and set course for Harvard where he will do post-graduate studies in the virology program at the school.

“It definitely feels like just yesterday (when I was homeless),” says Ayeni. “I feel like a completely different person.”

His journey to and through UC Merced has been filled with personal challenges that he says have helped shape the student and the man he is today. He moved from his mother’s home in Texas to his father’s in San Diego his senior year of high school. He says the school in San Diego offered better academic and athletic opportunities. The preparation he got at that school helped get him accepted to a list of schools that included Penn State, Washington State, Morehouse and Baylor. But he chose UC Merced because of the advice of his father, Anthony Ayeni.

“He told me that there would be more opportunities here and that I would be more valuable to the school as a student,” says Christian Ayeni. “He told me how it was in the school’s best interest that I succeed.”

He was right.

After a rocky freshman year with his homeless stint and the social distractions of being away from home for the first time, Ayeni says his focus shifted. He realized the rare opportunity of being on a campus that is untainted and a blank canvas for creative minds. He started Radio Merced (Now known as Bobcat Radio), and along with classmate Anley Tefera he started a chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.

“This is fertile ground,” says Ayeni, who says he’s noticed a surge in clubs and organizations. “I would definitely say to new students if you have an interest in something and you have done your research on the subject, try it.”

Ayeni has used that formula in his academic life as well. Every summer during his time at UC Merced he worked in a lab doing research. He spent two summers at UCSD, a summer at UC Merced and another summer Berkeley. It wasn’t until his final summer that he realized his future was in virology.
“I was talking to a classmate and she was telling me how her father died of AIDS when she was 7. And my father had told me about my uncle that died of AIDS in Nigeria,” says Ayeni, who says around the same time he noticed more commercials about AIDS awareness. “I’m kind of a spiritual man, and I looked at it as kind of a calling.

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