The best graduating student of Caleb University, Imota, Lagos, Miss Boluwatife Oyekan, tells SAMUEL AWOYINFA of punchng.com, how she achieved the feat
For Boluwatife Oyekan, achieving a first class grade is the fruit of a lot of sacrifice and self-denial.
She was the cynosure of all eyes on Saturday at the institution’s third convocation ceremony held at its multipurpose hall.
According to her, she avoided distractions on the campus, including having any romantic affair with any boy or men, attending parties and succumbing to peer pressure to indulge in what some people will call frivolities.
She says, “I never gave room for any distraction. One, I did not get involved in any amorous affair with the opposite sex. Again, I developed a workable reading time table for myself; and I kept to it.
“Essentially, it is the way you are dressed that people will address you. I kept to the doctrine of my church: the Deeper Life Bible Church. I never wore any skimpy dress. In fact, I never wore earrings. So, no boy ever came to me to say, ‘Bolu, I want to date you.”
Apart from being the best graduating student, Boluwatife, who scored a Cumulative Grade Point Average of 4.75, also got other cash awards for being the best graduating student in her department, College of Pure and Applied Science. She is also the most outstanding student with a Grade Point Average of above 3.50.
The petite 21-year-old graduate of Industrial Chemistry says the counselling she got from the Dean of her former department, Prof. Olukayode Ajayi, also helped her a great deal. She explained that Ajayi, who counselled her on her first day in the school, told her about his own undergraduate days and how he managed his time.
She says, “He told me never to pile up my dirty clothes but to wash them as they got dirty. While others were washing their own piles of dirty clothes on Saturday, I was free from such. So, I usually headed for the academic block, where I would bury myself in my books, reading.
“The dean also advised me on how to read my notes. He said when a lecturer gives the first lecture and gives a note, I should read it. When the lecturer gives the second one, I should read it over and then go back to the first one and also read. So, on and on, that was how I pursued my study.”
Recalling what she regards as a tinge of divine intervention in her attending Caleb University, Boluwatife, who attended the British International School, Lekki, Lagos for her secondary school education, states that she had initially gained admission into the University of Manitoba, Canada but she was refused visa. She noted that she passed the Test of English as a Foreign Language and she got all her documentation right.
She adds, “I was offered admission to read Medicine. But the Canadian Embassy refused to give me visa, giving an excuse that I was not a bonafide student. I wept and almost became inconsolable. But now I believe it was God who did not want me to travel abroad then.”
“Then, though I was attending a church, I was not God-fearing. It was while I was in Caleb University that I really moved closer to God, and I thank all those numerous people who came and preached at the school chapel throughout my stay there.”
Talking about how she feels being the best graduating student, she says she’s privileged because, according to her, there are other smart and intelligent students in the school.
While she looks forward to getting her call-up letter for the National Youth Service Corps, she explains that after the service year, she hopes to travel abroad for her master’s programme. And where does she want to work thereafter?
She replies, “I will love to work in a multi-national company, and contribute to national development. Ultimately, I will go for higher degrees, because I want to end up in the academics.”
