Journey to America III

J ourney to the America III

You know all those flaws in my application 
process that I pointed out earlier - low GRE 
Math scores, weak SOPs and letters of 
recommendation - I only became aware 
of them weeks after I had received the 
admission rejections. 
In my mind, my applications were strong 
enough to get me admitted into my safety 
school at least. 
Like they say - hindsight is 20/20. 
After the rejection letters, there was only 
one person I blamed for my failure to 
get admitted into any graduate program. 
I know you’re thinking it was Village people 
but no they were innocent this time around. I
n this instance, it was God I blamed. 
I had a weird relationship with God at 
the time. 
If good things happened to/for me, 
I’d thank him. 
If bad things happened to me or I 
didn’t get what I prayed for I would 
blame him. 
After all, He knew how badly I needed 
to school in the US and was aware that 
I’d told the world I was journeying to 
America. 
As powerful as he is, it would have 
cost him absolutely nothing to get me 
accepted into just one school. 
You needed to attend church on Sundays 
at my house if you didn’t want to answer 
questions from my parents so I had to 
go to church even though I was keeping 
malice with God. 
For the next 3 Sundays post-rejection, 
when I saw people dancing in church 
I would be thinking “why are these ones 
dancing to a wicked God that’ll end up 
disappointing them?”. 
I can’t remember what made me stop 
thinking in that foolish manner but it 
was over 3 weeks post-rejection that 
I decided to have an honest conversation 
with myself and sincerely evaluate my 
application. 
I went back and read all my SOPs and 
saw they weren’t compelling. 
I read the letters of recommendation that 
had been written for me and compared 
them with samples I saw online and 
agreed they were subpar. 
I patiently read the admission FAQs to 
see the factors that were considered 
when evaluating applications and saw 
that perfect GRE math scores and 
previous research experience were 
desired requirements. 
That was when I identified all those flaws 
I laid out before. 
By this time, my shoulders had dropped 
significantly from their previous high 
position and I had become humble. 
My morale was also very low and I 
concluded that an MSc from the US 
probably wasn’t in the cards for me. 
I had accepted my fate about not going 
to school but it was very painful for 
me to find out that some of my 
classmates who unlike me, hadn’t 
announced their plans to travel to 
the world, had been admitted to graduate 
programs in the US. 
There were 2 of my classmates’ admissions 
that pained me the most. 
The first was by a guy who was going to 
my dream school to study my desired 
course. 
The second was by a classmate who 
had expressed his fears to me about 
the US denying Nigerians admission 
and study VISAs because of the Nigerian 
guy who was arrested for attempted 
suicide bombing. 
I had confidently dismissed his fears 
saying the attempted suicide bombing 
would not affect our admissions and 
VISAs. Yet he was the one traveling 
and I, sister bold and confident, was 
the one staying behind. 
As if that wasn’t enough, I had to 
keep explaining to all the people I’d 
bragged to about traveling that I was 
denied admission and would be 
remaining in Nigeria. 
I also had to be explaining why I 
refused to consider going to the UK 
since the US didn’t work out. 
As far as I am concerned, the UK is 
not the same as the US and if I 
couldn’t make it to the US, then 
I wasn’t going to get a masters. 
Anyway,  I needed to get a job and 
eventually got one as an Information 
Security Analyst 6 months post-NYSC. 
I loved my colleagues but I wasn’t a 
fan of the company’s management 
because they had reneged on some of 
the promises they made me when 
I accepted their job offer and I also 
found out a few colleagues had the 
same experience. 
I also had a work colleague who was 
so passionate about the work and the 
company and seeing how much his 
drive and attitude contrasted with 
mine every day made me feel like 
perhaps,  I was on the wrong job. 
1 year 3 months after I started work 
while waiting for my friend to pick 
me after work, I watched that Steve J
obs’ viral commencement address 
to Stanford graduates where he said: 
“the only way to do great work is to 
love what you do”. 
I cried and cried after watching it 
because I knew I didn’t love what I did 
so it meant I couldn’t do great work. 
There and then I decided I was going 
to resign without discussing with 
anyone first. 
I can be quite impulsive when making 
even serious decisions. 
 I emailed my resignation letter with 
my 2-weeks notice to my boss and 
went home. 
The following day, he called me into 
his office to ask why I was resigning 
and wanted to know if I’d gotten a 
better paying job, or needed a raise 
but I replied in the negative to both 
questions and said I just didn’t think 
the role was a good fit for me. 
Of course, my parents were upset 
when I told them I had resigned 
(I didn’t say it was Steve Jobs that 
made me resign oh) and just 
explained to them that I didn’t think 
consulting was for me and I wanted 
to go back to my Telecoms. 
I assumed it wouldn’t be difficult to 
get a job with a Telco but mehn 
I was wrong. My dad had a connect 
at one of the major Telcos and I was 
invited for an interview with them.  
On 3 different occasions, I and other 
candidates waiting to be interviewed 
were kept waiting for several hours 
only to be told after the wait that 
the person who was supposed to 
interview us was not available and 
asked to go back home. 
We were told that an email would be 
sent to us informing us of the new date 
when the interview would hold.
 Honestly, my memory is telling me 
this happened 5 times not 3 times. 
Since I wasn’t making any headway 
with my search for a job with a Telco 
and the only lead I had were time 
wasters and there was no guarantee 
they’d employ me anyway, I decided 
it was time to consider re-applying 
to the US again. But I had learned 
my lesson and this time around, 
I wasn’t going to share my plans 
with anyone until I not only got 
admitted but also secured my VISA 
just in case history planned on 
repeating itself and I failed to 
get admitted yet again.
To be continued...
 

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