Idowu Khadijat Damilola of Babcock University, Ilishan, Ogun State, won the Senior Vice-President’s prize for graduating under-graduate student with the highest CGPA at the 20th undergraduate and 11th postgraduate convocation ceremony of the university.

Khadijat, who graduated with 4.91 CGPA from the Department of Sociology and Social Work, narrated how she had to contend with distractions from the social media to stay focused.

She said she had to delete social media platforms such as Tik Tok, Instagram and YouTube from her phone so as to remain focused on her studies.

Despite being the President of her department for a year and Senate President of the department for another year, she was able to balance leadership role with academic work; and graduate as the best academically.

She said that she is a very playful person, and that while playing most of the times, she goes on YouTube, Instagram and Tik Tok.

“I play a lot especially on Tik Tok but once I notice that I am getting distracted, I remind myself not to be distracted. So I delete them to enable me focus on my education and then re-install them later when I want to play.”

In spite of being playful, Khadijat said she is a very determined person, describing herself as a goal getter. “Whenever I want something, I plan towards getting it and I set a timeline and make sure I get it done.”

Commenting on her social life on campus, she said, “I was the President of my Department for a year and I was the Senate President of the Department for another year. I think I was very social but like I said earlier, I was determined and prayerful. Lots ad lots of prayers. Besides I am a Muslim,” she said.

She thanked her parents and family members for their support; as she attributed her success to God’s grace, prayer and hardwork on her part and on the part of her parents. On how she felt as the overall best graduating student, she said, “I am overwhelmed. My parents who do business did not attend University, so I am the first child as well as the first graduate in my family. So I’m glad that I made them proud,” she said.

Similarly, Sotunde Adesina Myron of the Department of Christian Religious Studies won the President’s Award as the student who had the overall best performance at undergraduate programmes in leadership, academics, community and spiritual services.

For the postgraduate level, Oloyede Busola Loveall (Masters of Public Health) and Ayeni Kolawole Ifeoluwa (Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology) emerged overall best with 4.74 and 4.73 CGPA respectively.

Babcock University this year recorded the highest number of postgraduate candidates graduating with 159 PhD holders, 312 Masters and Master of Philosophy, bringing the total to 471 while a total of 2,011 undergraduates of various Degrees graduated.

Out of the over 2,000 graduands, 110 came up with First Class.

In his commencement speech, the founder and CEO of AXXESS, a global care at home technology company, Mr. John Adeniyi Olajide encouraged the graduands to dream of a greater future, believe in themselves an live with purpose. (Daily Trust)

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