On the 1st day of May 2019, around 8 am while on a bus moving at about 70km/hr, I picked up my phone and out of the blues told my elder sister I was going to get a scholarship that day.
It was the craziest thing ever and she almost thought I’d gone bonkers.
But I meant it. I had woken up, dressed up, and jumped into public transport that morning with only one thought in mind – getting a scholarship.
You see, when Mitch Kapor invented the quote, ‘Genius is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not’, you’ll think he was describing me.
I had always shown brilliance right from a very young age. I was the one who will outcompete all the science students in my district to be a representative at a national mathematics competition. I was the one who will ace WASSCE in one sitting with a combination of distinctions and credits. I was the one who will score a qualifying grade at JAMB even though I had to take a computer-based test without prior experience with computers and very limited time, I was the one who will score 304/400 at post-jamb. But the conventional University was not for me because I did not make the socio-economic cut.
I had genius down, what I did not have was opportunity.
It happened that after I had completed my secondary education, my parents had the intent to help me get a tertiary degree, but not the financial capacity. But this was a message I could not understand because I was very much a teenager at the time, and nobody felt obligated to break it to me, so I went ahead on a wild goose chase to gain admission into a Nigerian university.
In 2013, my dad got me a UTME (Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination) form, and I took the test and scored an above-average grade, but there was no action to continue the admission process into my chosen universities until the admission window closed. Another window of opportunity opened though, Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa, had to extend their admission dates because they did not get to their desired number of applicants. It was the perfect university for a nerd like me.
New structures and study materials, a peaceful university community. There was no way I was going to miss this!
So, I borrowed N5,000 (~$35) from my elder sister and bought the application form.
When the exam was due, I had to travel from Lagos to Bayelsa to sit for it. I had saved enough money for the trip to Bayelsa, but not enough to get me back, so my mum supported me with more cash, a pack of food, and her blessings, and I will make her proud. My grade was in the 90th percentile, so I was offered admission on merit.
As life will have it, 2 of my elder sisters were in different tertiary institutions at the time and their tuitions were due just at the time when my admission email was sent, and I had to pay an admission fee of about N200,000+ (>1,215 in 2014 dollars) which included an academic year’s tuition and living expenses.
It was a no-brainer, my elder sisters who were in their final and second years in school would be prioritized, and I will have to forget my pipe dream of getting into the university that year.
In the ensuing years, during exam and admission season, all my supplications to get the required forms and start the process all over again were not attended to, I will eventually give up one fateful afternoon after I visited my dad’s workplace to request money to buy a JAMB form since the deadline was close, and he essentially told me that he wants to train me all the way till I get my doctorate, but he does not have the money to purchase a JAMB registration form that year.
It then dawned on me that it will never happen.
In the light of this realization, I wept all the way home. It felt like my dream, like every other smart child, to get a university education had been terminated, and it was really painful.
At this point, I refocused my energies and started building my own businesses, which seemed like the only option I had, since I don’t have the qualification to go seek jobs.
I started seeking opportunities to educate myself outside the four walls of a classroom (free of charge, of course), then I stumbled on pdfdrive.com, and eventually, FutureLearn
With PDF Drive, I downloaded and read any book I wanted. It was the ultimate library for me at the time. I felt like a rabbit that was dropped in a field of carrots when I first found it.
With FutureLearn, I could study whatever caught my fancy, and the course authors had fancy institutional names like MIT, Oxford University, etc. It was such fun.
What I did not know was that I was teaching myself 2 skills that are essential to success in a technology-driven world.
- The ability to learn things fast on my own
- Digital fluency.
Or as Accenture’s CEO Julie Sweet puts it in her interview with Harvard Business Review on the most important skills for anyone in the workforce, learning agility, and high technology quotient.
But there was a problem. I still encountered a glass ceiling I was finding difficult to shatter because I did not have the knowledge, network, and certificate that came with getting a degree, so I was determined to get it.
I started applying to scholarship programs with multiple European universities and the African Leadership University, but they all fell through.
One evening, while scrolling through Instagram, I saw an ad for Nexford University’s open day in Lagos, what caught my attention was the promise of an opportunity to pitch for a scholarship.
Well, I jumped on it immediately.
Filled out the registration, and got ready.
On the morning of the event, I woke up with only N1,200 ($3) to my name, but I had to get to the location and back. So I made a very wild bet. I will make the trip to the Oriental hotel that morning which will cost me N1,000, with the N200, I will try to get to the Landmark event center where my friend Dr. Dickson will be with his car at the GTBank food and drink festival, and ride with him home.
So I messaged him to confirm he will be at the event as we had previously agreed, and he answered in the affirmative.
At the open day, I enjoyed every session and was amazed that Nexford University had such support from the best minds in Nigerian academia, business, and creative industries. In attendance were Banky W, Afua Osei, Hilda Kragha, Summy Smart Francis, Nadayar Enegesi, and Dr. Oby Ezekwesili talked about her involvement with Nexford University through a recorded video. When Fadl al Tarzi, Nexford’s founder spoke about the University’s mission and his personal experiences, I was sold. I could not wait for the moment when the pitch sessions for the scholarship will be announced.
Finally, when Fadl announced that those who wanted a scholarship should step forward to pitch for it, I was at the forefront. I was already at the podium while everyone else hesitated. For a split second, I was confused though, did I step forward too soon?
Anyways, others eventually stepped out, and we were to pitch to the panel of judges why we needed the scholarship.
Somehow, more people were there for the MBA scholarship than the BBA scholarship and they went first. Eventually, it was my turn, and it felt as if time stopped as I shared my story. I talked about how my economic background held me back from earning a first degree, how I turned to free learning tools online to upskill myself, and how I had been able to build a business with the limited knowledge I had.
This was 2019, and I was just about to redesign Legendfitz’s production model in line with UN SDG 12, so I also shared that and talked about what the degree could do for me. I was supposed to pitch for a minute, but as I spoke, the timekeeper forgot, and I made it to the end of my story. Everyone else in the room was so drawn in that people wanted to talk to me after my pitch.
After the panel deliberation, I was announced one of the winners of the BBA scholarships. I was elated, but I kept my cool and stepped forward for the photo session.
This was how my journey to graduating with a 4.0 CGPA from an American University began.
I completed my enrolment and orientation that month, and by the first of June 2019, I started my first course at the University.
Finding my Life’s Mission
At Nexford University, the very first course I worked on helped me set the stage for the kind of success I wanted within the University, what was most instructive for me and will stay with me forever is setting my life’s mission.
After a journey of self-discovery, from a combination of my key characteristics, my personal history, and my passions, I developed a mission that will be a guiding light for my endeavors in the future. That mission is:
“To use my creative powers to avail everyone with the knowledge and tools to make the world a better place.”
It is so natural living this mission because it captures my personality and the essence of my sojourn on this rock. It has never felt like it is something I have to work towards, rather, it feels like a description of my life’s work.
My Nexford Experience
I am grateful that I had the opportunity to study at Nexford University. Nexford’s learning model is competency-based, where the courses and assignments are designed to improve, then test your competence on a particular subject matter
Compared to certain Universities that have an intelligence suppressing model and do not allow you to bring your creativity and personality into your work, Nexford University ensures that you actually work creatively, making sure that everything you write is well researched and gives you access to the largest academic library in the world.
From the moment I joined the University to the point of completion, my professors were kind and collaborative and wanted me to succeed. My professors are some of the most experienced people in their fields, PhD-holding academics who have real-world experience working in very elevated roles in the corporate world and in government. They provided me with quality feedback on my work which I incorporated to improve my overall submissions and were directly reflected in my outcomes.
By Nexford’s standards, you have to score 89.5 – 100 to get an A.
When you have a score between 79.5 and 89.4, you’ll get a B
When your score falls between 69.5 and 79.4, you get a C
There are no Ds and Es in the University
Anyone who scores below 69.4 automatically gets an F.
So the stakes were pretty high, and I had to score As a good number of times across all courses to graduate with a 4.0 CGPA, and having great professors was instrumental in this regard.
Next is the support system the University provides. Once you join Nexford University, the University connects you with a personal success advisor that supports you through the first few months of the program. My success advisor helped me understand the rudiments of university life, she supported me in setting up the required technology, and everything else I needed to get started. She was there for the first 3 months of my education, and when I needed somebody to talk to, I could write her.
Once my success advisor had completed her term, she advised that I reach out to the success team when I needed anything and anyone on the team would support me with it, and they did. Nexford’s success advisors became my ‘best friends’ through the program because I always left them a mail whenever anything came up, and they were very willing to support me, help me, or provide me with guidance.
The University also has multiple communities of learners across different platforms.
The communities that were internally promulgated by the school authority are our Localized communities. Outside Localized, there is a student-managed community on Facebook and multiple WhatsApp communities. I even co-founded the school’s unofficial Clubhouse community and we had many interesting conversations you can listen to here.
As a student of Nexford University, I endeavored to stay excellent and engaged. I enrolled into the University’s peer mentoring program as a mentor to provide advice to other students on how to have a more fulfilling time at the University, and it is one of the volunteer efforts I am most proud of.
In my time as a peer mentor, I provided advice on topics ranging from time management to student-professor relationship development, educational planning, caffeine dependence, and core course support. I watched the CGPA of my mentees rise and saw them begin enjoying their studies better. It made me so proud and I hope more people embrace the program, as mentors and mentees.
Outside that, I represented the University at the International Accreditation Council for Business Education (IACBE) business case competition 2022, where we worked closely with Donatos pizza to help them Develop a business strategy that will build brand awareness and relevance in emerging consumer segment: Gen Z. I had a lot of fun on the project and came off with a participation certificate and a recommendation letter from Dr. Michael McGiverns.
During my time as a student, I worked closely with the Nexford Nigeria team, helping out with new learner orientations (NLO) which gave me the opportunity to meet Dr. Oby Ezekwesili once. I was awarded student of the year for 2021 and the most outstanding peer mentor. Bringing the total number of awards received to 2 (so far) and certificates to 7. There’s a possibility I receive more awards at my graduation ceremony and this year’s end-of-the-year NXU socials.
Life as a student
When I joined Nexford University in 2019, I was running Legendfitz full-time as a fashion entrepreneur. There were weeks when I will have so much work to do, get home very late, and feel too tired to read. On such weeks, on the night of my assignment deadline, I will have to stay up and not sleep. Over the long term, this will affect my sleep rhythm, and I will develop the ability to sleep when I need to and stay awake when I have to.
Around November 2019, I was enrolled in a course called ‘World of Business’, I knew I wanted to become a technology entrepreneur, but that course gave me the kick in the butt I needed. A module in the course went to lengths in explaining what technology can do to businesses that do not embrace it, and what outcome it delivers to businesses that embrace it.
I felt like I was standing on the by-lines as my dream passed me by, so I jumped into action. I registered the evolvedigital.org domain name and by January 2020, I was already chasing down my first client as a technology entrepreneur.
January started on the high side for me. I had just received grant funding from the Netherland Enterprise Agency through the Orange Corners Innovation Fund and had planned out how the funds will be deployed in growing Legendfitz.
I made a lot of financial investments in the first 3 months of the year, then without warning, Covid hit.
The pandemic totally obliterated Legenfitz.
We didn’t have permission from the government to work, we couldn’t get imports because borders were closed, we didn’t have buyers because everyone was at home and in fret mode, and our suppliers hiked the price of the limited materials they had. When you are scared about your life, shoes are not the first thing you buy. And we had just spent so much money launching a collection. It felt like flushing money down the drain, and it broke me.
With so much uncertainty in my life at that point, I still had to study.
Somehow, Nexford University scheduled that I take a course called Science of Happiness where I studied the psychology behind happiness in life and at work and how to get into your flow state, also my professors were so kind, they understood that it was a very challenging time for their students so they supported us in whatever way they could.
By September 2020, Legendfitz was almost dead in the water, but EvolveDigital was seriously picking up. We had launched our first mobile application to the Google Playstore by July and I was working with fashion companies to develop enterprise applications.
One of the fashion entrepreneurs offered me a job as the tech lead in his company and I took the offer. By October, I moved from being a full-time entrepreneur to a full-time employee with a side hustle.
But then, I did this because I really wanted to understand the business of fashion and the overall value chain, and how I could use my technology solution to make the business better.
2021 was the year I went slowest with my studies. Handling a job, my business, and my studies was not easy, so I applied to take only 2 courses in a term. By August, I had gotten the Google Africa Developer Scholarship and started the 31 Days of Kotlin community to help those who were new to Android learn the Kotlin programming language, the workload was so much that I was considering taking a leave of absence from Nexford University, but my success advisor advised that I scale it down to 1 course a term instead. That way, I could still manage all my other commitments. And I did exactly that.
The beauty of a Nexford education is that you can scale it up or down as needed to fit your unique needs, and by 2022, I scaled it up.
I resigned from my role as the tech lead for the company I worked for and decided to treat the enterprise application I built for fashion companies as a product since it has the potential to achieve scale.
So, I began taking 4 courses a month starting January 2022 which made my schedule packed, as I also worked on Stylebitt to put the founding team together.
Rediscovering my Life’s Work
My Nexford education gave me insights into my personality and my powers. Remember when I wrote that I was the one winning mathematics competitions in secondary school?
While studying at Nexford, I began connecting the dots. I realized that I was a scientist who thrived in topics that involved analysis and numbers, and I wanted to use computers and business as my tools of communication.
That is my art form, and pursuing it will give me a lot of fulfillment. But then, I may have never found out if I did not attend Nexford University.
Founding Stylebitt
By December 2021, I had coined the name Stylebitt, which is a fusion of the word Style (as related to fashion) and the word Bit (the 1 and 0 binaries that computers understand). But because I could not purchase stylebit as a domain, I added an extra T and the name became Stylebitt. With that, I proceeded to secure Stylebitt.com.
Domain secured, I needed co-founders.
My first co-founder Ibrahim, is a colleague from school. Ibrahim was awarded ‘most likely to found a startup’ at Nexford in 2021, and then he reached out to me and asked that we work on a project together.
I was like, “so you’ve won most likely to found a startup now you will not let me rest”, but then, Ibrahim is the perfect co-founder for Stylebitt, his skills in design and operation complement mine, and together, we started working on the Stylebitt project. Ibrahim has been the most steady hand I have had on the team so far, but without Nexford, I would not have found him.
At Stylebitt today, we implement a lot of the things I learned at the University. For example, we use the OKR framework to guide our work at the company, and I first came across OKRs during my time at Nexford.
Conclusion
My Nexford education is a dream come through, and I am grateful to God and everyone who helped make it a possibility.
When I won the Nexford scholarship, it felt surreal, and I promised myself that I will put in my best.
I believe I have successfully followed through with that promise.
I dedicate this degree to Fadl al Tarzi, the founder of Nexford University, whose life work has impacted me so much. I hope to be able to impact others to this extent in my time on earth. And to Olamidun Majekodunmi for bringing Nexford to Nigeria and building a local network around the University.
Thank you so much.
For your viewing pleasure, here’s my official transcript
N.B. Nexford University was awarded the most innovative higher education brand in the United States at the Global brand awards 2020.
P.S. I am currently seeking a job that allows me to do my best work while building Stylebitt. Please hire me.