Alum credits LCCC for guiding her educational and career journey

"She believed she could, so she did" - Maya Angelou

When you have siblings, you are expected to be the example. That is exactly what recent Luzerne County Community College graduate Lalaj Johnson is doing.

As the 30-year-old gets ready to embark on the next phase of her life, she recalled fondly how her brother's positive experience at LCCC encouraged her to attend and now how her journey encouraged her sister to attend and study computer science.*

"She said to me, 'I didn't think I would make this decision, but I've watched you do it and you've been so happy,'" said Lalaj, who graduated with an associate degree in Audio/ Video Communications. "That's the most important thing to feeling like I'm an example to my loved ones. And my other sister is graduating high school soon."

Her journey to becoming a Trailblazer began in 2002 when she moved with her family from New Jersey to Pennsylvania at the age of 8. But shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, she moved back to New Jersey. Johnson then moved with her mother to Egypt in the Middle East, where her mother was an English teacher. She grew up speaking Arabic with her classmates and coworkers. She can still speak it today but says with a little chuckle that she's "a little rusty."

Lalaj was the first to move back to Pennsylvania in 2018, then her brother in 2019 and the rest of the family in 2020. Lalaj, her mother, her four sisters, and two brothers moved back to Edwardsville, with her father, who remained in Pennsylvania when they left the county. She currently lives on her own with her son.

After learning more about LCCC and the classes offered, Lalaj decided to enroll at LCCC to help her start her broadcast communications career. Her brother also attended, and she heard great things about the school from him.

"Why not have the best teachers, have the best experiences and make friends?" said Lalaj. "The TV club has been some of the most highlighted experiences of my life, so I think it really has worked out."

She attributes the TV club for giving her all the opportunities to get real-life, on-the-job experience.

"It gave me an opportunity to put into practice the stuff that we are learning in class," Lalaj said. "We learned about TV production, radio production, electronic newsgathering, how to use a camera and how to formulate stories. In the TV club, we were able to do that on a bigger scale and we had full creative control over what we were doing."

In the summer of 2023, LCCC faculty gave Lalaj and two other classmates, Mike Apichel and Robert Brenner, the opportunity to gain real-world experience by developing and covering their own stories.

"It was up to us to get out there [in the community] and get stories, since nothing was happening on campus during the summer. So that's when we got out there and engaged with the communities in Pittston, Wilkes-Barre and Scranton," said Lalaj. "We definitely got a taste of what it was like to really be out there and see what was going on."

Also, during that summer, the TV club started their student discussion show "Outside the Box" and did many projects with a newscast on the school's TV channel, Comcast channel 9.

Due to all her hard work and dedication, Lalaj was nominated for and earned the Outstanding Graduate for this year. The award is very important to Lalaj and her family, especially for her father.

"I remember talking to Mr. McHugh [Tom McHugh, LCCC Communications Arts professor] about it and he said to me, 'I think you'd make a great candidate. I've watched you grow during your time here and I think you have a good shot at winning this,'" Lalaj said. "He was very proud because he knows how hard I've worked at my education. When I was overseas, I would talk to him all the time about wishing I could come back home and continue my education and he always told me to have faith and have hope that someday I will get the opportunity to finish my education and excel."

But within a blink of an eye, everything can change, and it briefly did. In October of 2023, Lalaj was accidentally hit by a car at the corner of Wyoming Avenue and Market Street in Wilkes-Barre. The accident resulted in her having three fractured ribs, a concussion, and a punctured lung.

Lalaj made sure the accident didn't derail her from achieving her academic goals.

"It is good to have ambitions and to be willing to move forward, but also take care of myself," Lalaj said. "I had great teachers who were very understanding, and we found a way to keep me on track."

Lalaj has spent the last year and a half recovering from the accident. Although she's not fully recovered, she said she's just lucky to be alive and almost back to her normal self.

When she thinks back on her time at LCCC, Lalaj said she is proud of what the TV club accomplished over the past two years.

"I feel like we've done amazing stuff together as a team and as friends," Lalaj said. "We created content that I feel really mattered. We asked ourselves, 'What can we do that would be the most beneficial to the students,' and I feel we've delivered on that so that has definitely been the highlight of my journey here."

In her 30 years of life, Lalaj has gone through and overcome a lot. And because of her past experiences, she doesn't want to go back to the life she once lived.

"For so long, I sat with myself, thought about what I want to add to my life and prayed a lot about the things that I wanted to experience," Lalaj said. "The life that I came from is very different from the life that I have now. I grew up in a very religious household and these ideals and expectations were very different from what I'm doing now. You're expected to learn the religion and practice that to the best of your ability, to teach that to others and that's the most important thing. All my goals I wanted for myself, to be educated and to have a career, felt like that would never happen for so many years. Then finally saying to myself, this is my life."

Lalaj is taking the necessary steps to stay motivated and take control of her goals.

"I get to make these decisions for myself and I'm tired of crying about it, I want to live it," Lalaj said. "That's what motivates me, knowing that I come from such a different life and feeling like it's possible now because I achieved these goals little by little and not wanting to go back to that feeling of never achieving these goals. I never want to feel like that again. I do everything I can to be motivated and to keep going."

What is next in Lalaj's journey? She plans on transferring to either Temple University, Syracuse University or University of Pennsylvania for her bachelor's degree.

She believed she could, so she did.