Meet American University Of Nigeria Best Graduating Student

  Immaculata Onuigbo on her graduation day

Immaculata Onuigbo is  the recent name the American University of Nigeria will have in its book of academic excellence.

 Immaculata has recently graduated from the University with a clean, perfect CGPA of 3.98.

Immaculata's academic brilliance and hard work have earned her a good reward as she emerged the best graduating student from the American University of Nigeria.

  AUN

"I have always seen academic excellence as an opportunity to not just get sterling grades, but also an opportunity to prepare for the future. On that note, I tried as much as possible to enjoy the learning process rather than see it as a burden.  started off by choosing Petroleum Chemistry because I enjoyed Chemistry while in secondary school."

Apart from determination and focus, Immaculata has time management as another ingredient for success. And this is one thing Nigerian students should learn from this young lady because time management is ostensibly an issue on campus.

"Time management was also another factor. I have come to understand that no matter how smart one is, if you can't meet deadlines, you would still score in the same percentile as others who may not have understood the material well. So I decided to have a study plan in which I wrote down all tasks and allotted times to do them. It really helped because I had time to finish my work well, digested the knowledge and had time to review them before submitting them.

Yes, I wanted to come out with a first class as that would position me well for other future opportunities like scholarships and job competitiveness. Although being the best graduate was never consciously planned - I was lucky.

  Immaculata Onuigbo

While some undergraduate scholars break record low-key without having a good relationship with their lecturers or recognized by them, Immaculata sees working with lecturers as an opportunity to achieve greater things. This is really working for her and the genius is enjoying it.

I have also had the opportunity to work on energy research with my lecturers in school. To me, this is a huge opportunity because that has prepared me for graduate studies as I have gained skills on how to conduct a proper scientific-worthy journal research.

How on earth did she now make this achievement considering campus many activities, some of which are considered as distractions by eficos ? (Efico is a campus slang for brilliant students)

They were not exactly distractions, rather they were activities that help students balance academic life and social life. I attended some and they were quite fun.

I made a lot of great friends in school whose goals aligned with mine and we mutually learned from one another. So my friends were never a source of distraction.

But making first class can be tough and Immaculate has her share of this tough experience.

It was not so easy actually. In the AUN grading system, A starts from 93% so you can see how much one has to put in to make an A. Good thing was that the weighting of the final grade was divided into various sections. There was some marks for attendance (5%), Tests 1 & 2 (25 -30%), research paper (10%), research paper class presentation (10%) and the final examination (35-40%). So doing well in each of the subsets would definitely help push you to an A.  However in federal schools, there is usually a large weighting on the final which makes it a bit different and sometimes more overwhelming for students.

 When asked what would have been her reactions if she had not graduated with first class, Immaculate response is as sound as ever.

She said, normally, good grades naturally follow having a good command of knowledge. So to answer, I would have been surprised rather than disappointed. Though my compensation would have been that I know I can apply what I have learned to impact lives in the society.

Ironically, when a student is this sound, people tend to believe he/she is a bookworm and highly socially awkward, but Immaculata Onuigbo is not one of those brilliant students, who do not have the word FUN in their dictionary.

Yes that is the popular belief actually. However, my close friends and roommates can attest to the fact that I also had my own share of fun in school. I played a lot of sports (soccer and volleyball), I attended some school social events, I did volunteer community development works and I watched a lot of movies/series too. It is always good to strike a balance between intellectual and physical exercise