Alexi Thomas ’19CLS ’19BUS ’16CC
Co-founder
Afrodemics
As co-founder of Afrodemics, Alexi Thomas has made it her mission to provide needed knowledge and experiences to black first-generation and / or low-income (FLI) students.
After immigrating to the United States from the West Indies as a child, Alexi faced the challenges of assimilating as quickly as possible while also dealing with an unfamiliar educational system. Due to a combination of grace, luck, and hard work, she was accepted into a very competitive NYC high school, Bard High School Early College Queens from which she graduated with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree in liberal arts, as well as departmental honors in Spanish and English and comparative literature.
During an independent study in Russian in 11th grade, Alexi’s professor introduced her to the possibility of studying law as a more varied, fast-paced alternative to academia, a field Alexi became attracted to after seeing the passion with which each of her professors conducted their courses and their research.
The academic depth, breadth and rigor of Alexi’s time at BHSECQ made it possible for her to be admitted early decision to Columbia University’s Columbia College in the Class of 2016. Alexi is the first person in her family to go to college.
Once she matriculated at Columbia, Alexi knew she would one day go to law school, declaring a major of hispanic studies and pre-law track. In her senior year, Alexi juggled working 25+ hours a week, preparing for the LSAT for at least 25 hours a week, and working on her senior honors thesis — for this, she was rewarded with admission to Columbia Law School in March 2016, as well as departmental honors and an academic prize for the best thesis in her department.
During her first year at Columbia Law School, Alexi worked to keep her grades up while juggling three board positions and a position as a Moot Court teacher for Columbia Law School’a High School Law Institute. In her second year at the law school (and first year at the Business School), she traveled with classmates while discovering her love for social enterprise and entrepreneurship. As a third year JD / MBA, Alexi volunteered with a family law organization to secure uncontested divorces for her clients.
Also to that end, she was a 1L and then 2L summer associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in the summers of 2017 and 2018, in the New York and London offices.
Alexi currently juggles Afrodemics, her blog for FLI identities called MelaMillennial, and her work as a corporate lawyer in NYC.