When Raian Osman learned he’d been named a recipient of a scholarship from an anonymous donor, it felt like for the first time in a long time he could finally begin to relax.

“It felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders,” he said.

Instead of constantly worrying at the beginning of each semester if he’d have enough money in his bank account to pay bills and purchase expensive school supply items like textbooks or a graphing calculator for his math courses, the scholarship gave the computer science major the financial security he needed to begin thinking about his future.

That future begins this summer, as the 20-year-old landed an internship at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Herndon, Va., where he’ll work as a solutions architect.

Osman has already had to overcome real hardships that few his age have faced.

His parents are refugees of the Second Sudanese Civil War, who immigrated to this country when he was just a year old. His mother works as a nanny. His father runs a janitorial services business. Osman is the eldest of four boys.

Money has always been tight in their household and every dollar earned goes back to the family. That’s why when the pandemic hit, it was particularly hard on them. Osman said every member of his immediate family caught the virus, and neither of his parents could work. His mom lost her nanny job temporarily. His dad was too sick to work for a month.

“When he did get COVID,” said Osman, “my second oldest brother and I covered for him there.”

The two brothers started splitting up the work to keep the business running.

“My dad is the person who takes care of us, so we were responsible for making up the lost monthly income,” said Osman. “We had to come up with ways to stay afloat. For me that meant going to work and putting classes to the side. For my brother, it meant less time hanging with friends. We each had to grow up a little bit faster. 2020 and 2021 have been crazy but we tried to make a positive thing from a negative experience. We learned new skills and concepts to apply to our current lives.”

Osman is from the Bay Area of California and graduated in 2017 from Menlo-Atherton High School, about 30 minutes outside San Francisco. His family moved to the East Coast to be closer to family in 2019 and Osman started at MCCC that fall. They live in Chalfont, Pa.

Osman chose MCCC because of how welcoming the faculty and staff were to him when he arrived on campus. During the pandemic, he credits his professors for their flexibility as he dealt with his family’s personal struggle.

“They understood what it meant to be a student during these hard times,” he said. “During COVID, there were classes I dropped because I couldn’t focus. For the classes I did keep, my professors were very understanding. All in all, they understand what’s going on with student life and have come up with commodities and accommodations to offset those obstacles.”

With the scholarship in hand and life beginning to go back to normal, Osman began to thrive in the classroom. His impressive work in his computer science classes helped him land the internship at AWS.

“My Database Management Systems Using SQL and Object Oriented Programming in C++ classes were both tremendously helpful to me to feel prepared for the technical questions they asked. And the projects I did for database management stood out with my resume,” he said. “They really enjoyed my final project because it had real world applications. It had to do with businesses and business structures and solving problems with the use of data.”

As the pandemic begin to turn a corner, Osman is focused on his planned fall 2022 graduation date. He’s looking to transfer to a four-year institution back on the West coast again to continue studying computer science and ultimately put those hard-earned skills to good use.

He wants to help the people of Sudan who are protesting against their government. He’s looking to help design an app that will allow citizens there to become more well-informed of the actions of their government, as internet access has been shut down in the past.

“Obviously the logistics are complicated, but I want to give power back to citizens through knowledge, so they’re able to move in a smarter direction,” he said. “They were still protesting but because they have no idea what’s going on with their government, it’s harder to organize and make efficient and meaningful change. A lot of people are going back to Sudan. I wanted to do my part as well.”

Right now though, he’s just grateful for the generosity of his scholarship that’s allowed him to relax and keep studying.

“I feel like if it wasn’t for that scholarship,” he said, “I wouldn’t have been able to get to where I am now.”