AUN BEST GRADUATE, IMMACULATA speaks:
Studying is hard; learn to enjoy your course to attain success Immaculata Onuigbo is the overall Best Graduate of the American University of Nigeria (AUN) Class of 2017 with the Cumulative Grade Point (CGP) of 3.98 from the 4.00 of America’s grading syste
You got scholarships for your secondary and university education. How did it happen?
When I was in primary six, some people from Yar’adua Foundation in Abuja visited public schools in my state (Enugu), and I was lucky to have been chosen for a scholarship examination. I emerged as one of the winners of the scholarship from my state. The scholarship was to study at AUN Academy, formerly called ABTI Academy. I spent six years there and after my WAEC and JAMB, I was also offered another scholarship to AUN. That was how I came here and chose to study Petroleum Chemistry.
The foundation pays our tuition, housing, feeding and other things and transport us back home.
AUN academy has good facilities and it has given me a better chance to develop more than I would have had if I had gone to a conventional school.
Coming from a different region, what were the challenges you faced?
The first was the language barrier. Prior to coming here it was only English and Igbo that I could speak. I have had to learn how to speak Hausa.
In academics, I had great teachers in my secondary school and when I needed help I asked for it. They made it very easy for me to excel academically so I didn’t have much problem.
What do you derive from being a Honour Society member in AUN?
The Honour Society concerns high standard of excellence especially academically. To be a member, you need a minimum CGP of 3.5, and to maintain your membership you have to work hard to at least be above that 3.5. It helped me to keep my grade in check and one major thing is the scholarship programme that we do.
What were your unique points to achieving success?
I will say that I was lucky to have chosen something that I enjoy doing. No matter what, studying is actually hard, what makes it easier is if you are enjoying it, then you will feel less pain of studying and you will study at length to achieve success. I enjoyed what I was studying and I love learning; every day I learn a new thing. That was what helped me to keep the passion burning.
You aspire to become a professor. What is the motivation behind this?
I was not really sure of what I will do after university, but the Honour Society helped students that are academically challenged, so I participated in the tutorial aspect and I came to see that while I teach people I actual learn more. It gives me a special kind of happiness when I know that someone now gets to know something because I helped that person, that was when I started thinking of venturing into the education world. I also have wonderful professors and the female ones are worth looking up to. I will be okay being a professor at a university.