I am Oyewole Samod Atanda, a graduate of Chemical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering, with a Cumulative Grade Point Average of 4.84. Calling it a 'journey' almost undersells it, it felt more like a series of trials I had to keep passing to earn the right to stay in the race. After three JAMB attempts and two near-misses at UNILAG for Civil Engineering, I was admitted to study Physics Education, transferring into Chemical Engineering after my first year, a transfer that nearly broke me, seven missed weeks of lectures, a mismatched matric number, two failed attempts at engineering drawing, and nights spent sleeping in classrooms because I couldn't secure hostel accommodation.
Graduating with First Class Honours and a 4.84 CGPA despite transferring in nearly two months into my second year, almost without foundation in the department's core courses, is what I'm proudest of. It's not the number itself, it's what it represents: a maths score of 1 out of 30 on my first test in the new department, and a decision made over and over, semester after semester, to keep going anyway. In 500 level I served as General Secretary of my department, sat on committees across MSSN, NSChE, NUESA LASU and the LASUSU Academic Committee, and, before any formal title, built a full tutorial system for coursemates that grew out of a 100-level reading circle, having already taught over 200 students across tutorial centres before ever gaining admission.
My challenges were layered, academic, emotional, and administrative all at once, but I leaned on people, a level adviser who advocated for me, lecturers who intervened, and friends like Hanifah and Waris who read alongside me, and rebuilt a study routine with military discipline. From 300 level to 500 level, my worst result in any course was a '4,' never a full 5.0 semester until the very end, and consistency, not perfection, is the lesson that will stay with me for life. My education was fully sponsored by the Mary Sunlola Gbadebo Foundation, and I also won the A.G. Leventis Scholarship for Egba Indigenes, the NSChE Scholar of the Year award twice, and the MSSN LASU Epe Campus Award for Academic Excellence.
The founder of the Mary Sunlola Gbadebo Foundation, who stayed present through every twist in my journey, has been my biggest source of inspiration, alongside the 200-plus students I taught before ever setting foot on campus, who taught me I had something real to offer.
My advice to current and incoming students is to start early, from the first week of resumption, not when exams are close, and to teach what you're learning, even informally, since explaining a concept is the fastest way to discover what you actually understand. As I remind myself: push hard on everything you can control, then release what you can't.