Success and library are supposed to be closest relatives but Ibrahim Adedeji Alimi of Unilag has proven otherwise with his glaring success.
Though not a firm lover of the library but an absolute believer of hard work, Alimi graduated as the best graduating student of Mechanical Engineering in the 2018/2019 set.
His enviable records of success right from his primary and secondary school days built a foundation for his success today at the University of Lagos.
With his words, Alimi journeyed down the rough road to 4.98 CGPA. He said, “I won’t say it was easy, it was not. In my Primary school, I was always the first or second-best student and in my secondary school, I finished as the second-best student, both of which already gave me a good start. Then, my JAMB score was not as high as I would have expected. I had 205 in JAMB and getting admission into the University of Lagos with 205 felt impossible but I still got the merit list because of my excellent performance in my post UTME. I had a good foundation, coupled with the fact that I believe that whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. It was not like I had it in mind to be the best graduating student from the start. I only wanted to finish with a very good grade; a first-class.
“I attended a couple of orientations in my first year and that was where I learned there was an endowment fund for students that made the first-class CGPA every year and it was N50,000. For a young boy like me, it was a lot of money and it was my motivation to do better. In my first semester, I took like 7 courses, and because I prepared really hard, I had a 5.0 and also a 5.0 in the second semester. I am a student that learns a lot in class so I took my classes very seriously
“I am also not a fan of the library. In my entire years at the university, I visited the library only two or three times. I prefer to read in my room. Another thing that helped me was helping others. Helping my coursemates understand what we’ve been taught was a motivation to read for me. I also engaged in some extracurricular activities, but when I noticed it was becoming too much, I decided to cut it off because I knew my primary aim in the University was my academics.”
