Anika Barnes pronounces her first name a-NEEK-a. It’s a beautiful, rhythmic pronunciation, a nod to an instrument that moves her in the best of ways.

Anika got her first violin as a Christmas present when she was four. She soon started taking lessons at Moore Music in downtown Greensboro and began learning many nameless folk songs from her teacher. Those lessons kept her enamored with the instrument in her hands.

Over the years, she got better. She took lessons at Morehead Elementary, played with the orchestra at The Academy at Lincoln and later joined the Greensboro Symphony Youth Orchestra. Anika kept at it. It wasn’t just to improve her skills; she just wanted to experience joy.

“When I play and close my eyes, I can feel more than I can see,” she says today. “I can feel the elements of the music. It’s like being in nature. You go into a forest very far from the city and so many things overcome you. Just what you see and hear and feel. At the same time, you’re still. You’re at peace.”

The Guidance of Grandpa

Anika graduates Thursday (May 29) from STEM Early College at N.C. A&T at A&T’s Harrison Auditorium, and she leaves with the confidence and intellectual curiosity she first discovered when playing her violin. This fall, she will begin at UNC-Chapel Hill and major in pharmacy.

She wants to use her pharmacy degree to begin a career where she helps develop drugs that fight diseases and conditions that debilitate people. She also wants to advocate making medicine more accessible and more affordable, particularly for marginalized communities who feel powerless to the powerful who control healthcare.

She learned early the need for addressing health disparities. She learned it from her paternal grandfather, James Barnes. She called him Grandpa.

In the 1960s, Barnes was the first Black man to graduate from UNC-Chapel Hill’s Eshelman School of Pharmacy. He started his career at Sampson’s Pharmacy in Greensboro, and after earning a master’s degree in public health from his alma mater, he ended his career as the pharmacy manager for UNC Health in Chapel Hill. He retired in 2015.

During his time at UNC Health, he would bring Anika to what she described as “Black pioneer brunches.” She started going when she was 9 years old. For three years, seated beside her grandfather, she would hear conversations about the need for more minorities to pursue healthcare careers so future patients from marginalized communities could feel seen and heard.

Her grandfather died in March 2022. He was 76. Four years ago, in an oral history produced by the Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Barnes talked about his granddaughter’s interest in pursuing pharmacy — and her ability to do so.

 “My granddaughter just turned 14, as my wife just reminded me,” Barnes said, chuckling. “But I’m not insisting that she go to pharmacy school or anything. She respects it. She’ll make her own decisions. She’s the kind of person who will research things. But I’m happy the avenue is there for her to do it if she wants to.”

And Anika wants to. Her grandfather sparked her interest. Her time at STEM Early College at N.C.A&T showed her the way.

Finding Inner Strength

Since October 2023, she has joined Dr. Mufeed Basti, a chemistry professor at A&T, to research how natural products like date seeds could be used in medicine such as preventing Alzheimer’s disease. The following summer, on a small Japanese island where her mom grew up, Anika shadowed her pharmacist aunt and saw firsthand the positive impact of technology in a community-based pharmacy.

As her interest in pharmacy grew, Anika’s interest in honing her leadership skills grew as well. She established clubs at the STEM Early College and became a team leader with the nonprofit organization Leadership Initiatives. She worked with high school students from Maryland and California in finding ways to prevent malaria and gestational diabetes in Africa.

This year, Anika became the regional director for HYPE International, a youth-led nonprofit organization out of Atlanta. She joined other HYPE members in helping encourage younger students to get excited about STEM, the well-known acronym of science and engineering, technology and math.

“It has made me more confident,” Anika says about STEM Early College at NC A&T. “To be honest, I was shy at first. I wasn’t confident about asking questions, and the first time I asked professors for help, I found they were completely fine with going above and beyond.

“So, I learned to advocate for myself, and I now go in with the mindset that the worst thing they can say is ‘No.’”

Old Self, New Self

In her common-application essay, Anika wrote about how stepping beyond her comfort zone requires, as she says, “a bit of bravery.” She found her bravery at STEM Early College. She conducted research, started clubs, and took on leadership roles. By her senior year, she realized what her “bit of bravery” has done for her.

“Becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable isn’t just about trying new things,” she wrote. “It's about redefining what I thought I was capable of.”

When she gets to UNC-Chapel Hill, she will pursue pharmacy. She also will try out for the UNC Orchestra. If she gets in, great. If not, that’s OK too.

“Music is almost eternal,” she says. “It follows you. I just know it’s important to keep playing. That keeps with me a part of my older self.”

Grandpa would be proud.