By Boluwatife Adedokun, Akungba Akoko.
The best graduating student of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko (AAUA) for the year 2019/2020, Florence Akinwunmi, has expressed her plans to impact the world through discovery and research.
Ms Florence, who graduated from the Biochemistry department with 4.77 CGPA, was given the prize at the just concluded convocation ceremony held at the institution’s Olusegun Obasanjo Multipurpose Hall.
In an exclusive interview with oh correspondent, she explained how she was able to scale through despite the challenges that accompany academic success.
She disclosed that she only planned on becoming the best in her department, not knowing that she would be the overall best.
When asked how she was able to cope despite the hard marking guide of some lecturers, she said, “I tried to study my lecturers so as to know what he or she is interested in. Mind you, expatiating an answer is not always the best way but it makes someone be on a safer side because extra one or two marks count most times”
She explained that no lecturer would want to fail his or her student, but students can only battle with marking guides. “As a student, we should know how to answer questions correctly. It is not a must you answer all questions during examination but the little you are answering, let it be sound” she said
Explaining how she came out in flying colour, she said she learnt how to answer questions from her two great mentors, Dr Sanni and Dr Nuhu from Federal Polytechnic Ofa, where she attained her National Diploma in the same department.
“I believe myself to read and assimilate during the day, I can’t read beyond 12 am in the midnight, so I spent the hours judiciously. I can read from 7 am to 7 pm,” she said.
Florence explained that hard work, luck, most especially prayer have helped her in becoming an outstanding student.
On how she will impact the world, she said, “We all know this is an era of a pandemic. As a Biochemist, I can provide a solution to it. Cancer is also a major threat, we can also find a solution to that and many more through our research.”
She elucidated that being a pharmacologist, she will be able to detect new drugs that will help cure those diseases.
While advising the students, she said “The key to academic excellence is persistent reading. They must be studious, focused, disciplined and sacrifice their time.”
“They should do away with reading to pass but read to understand and most importantly prayer so as to sail through and rise above the storm of mediocrity. Excellence is a journey. We must not be static. We must keep moving forward because this is just an achievement at the preliminary stage”, she concluded.
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