Getting admitted to a school of your choice, to a course of your choice immediately after graduation is a dream of every young Nigerian. And for most science students, getting admitted to study medicine, in a federal University (if not abroad) immediately after graduation. But only a few are lucky to have this dream come true.
I for one, I consider myself half lucky but nonetheless very grateful.
I remember being a very ambitious young girl, always daydreaming of becoming a hot and young doctor from a very prestigious and popular university. WAEC and JAMB were the two bridges only a few get to cross in a a few months. For some it takes four years I heard, and being a brilliant student in my school I thought I could also cross the bridge in a few.
I had already calculated everything. I would get admitted at 16 and graduate at no less than 23, years old.
Each year passed with me getting more heartbroken and depressed. Will I ever cross the bridge in time? Will my dreams ever come true?
I'm 18 with nothing to show than an average JAMB score. Everyone had lost hope in me, even myself. Some took it an opportunity to mock me, the too ambitious once brilliant girl who couldn't pass JAMB while some looked at me with pity in their eyes, my mother included.
"Why don't you give up and just take another course, why are you and your father so persistent" my brother would mock.
I started to give up.
But my father was there and when I gave up he didn't.
And now I'm 19, in level 100 in a State University, studying medicine. And even though that wasn't how I planned everything to be, I'm forever grateful to my father for believing in me even when I gave up on myself, and never giving up on me every year when I would bring home a poor result.
So Thank you Father.