I don’t know if anyone gets really scared when everyone expects so much from them. Like the physics professor expects them to lead the class in the upcoming test and wants to grade their scripts first or their parents expects to see a 4.0 GPA on their degree works at the end of the semester. Going down memory lane to when we were in primary school, energetic and foolish. Didn’t know what we needed but we knew what we wanted ( i sure did and it was either that bell that sounded signifying “lunch boxes out” or the roasted corn and groundnuts that i got when i answered most of the questions correctly).
Then final year in primary school made us feeling responsible especially when we were given important roles. Secondary school came and had to start again from the bottom. We learnt that 1- 4 wasn’t impossible, it was -3, that our generation was going to be more competitive that our fore-generations. Our generation had a name “the millennial”. The rest of secondary school glided through like wild fire during harmattan.
Community college came and we felt free as the wind. It was the land of the free, the home of the brave and the system was different. It was supposed to be so easy. We grinded in the hard African system and we had come to relax and breeze through college in America. Disappointment level was high after the first few semesters. There was no chilling at all especially for someone in Engineering.
A new phase officially starts in a few months. I am taking all the memories of afore years and mistakes to carve my success story. Only one me among a thousand others and I’ll take those odds. I know it is survival if the fittest and only those who are determined and focused will make it to the end.
My dad says pain now and pleasure tomorrow. This is what i tell myself. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
Your Dad is right! I am an Electrical Engineer, and a Physics/Chemistry professor at CCBC.
Here is one my grandmother always used to say “Nothing worthwhile is easy”
— professor Jim