Class of 2016 Speaker Kingsley Jima has been speaking about the special academic mentorship he enjoyed at AUN.
The International & Comparative Politics Honors graduate is presently studying a two-year MA program in Global Studies at the University of Leipzig (Germany), and the University of Vienna (Austria), courtesy of an Erasmus Mundus grant.
Mr. Jima says he already had international experience at AUN before moving to Europe and is grateful for the academic foundation and mentorship support he got from AUN professors.
He speaks about community service and how helping out in the community enriches academic research at AUN; how AUN connects students from local community participation to global issue awareness.
"I had the opportunity of visiting the US three times, paid for by AUN, by the way. I went for Model United Nations in 2014, I went for the second time in 2015, and I went for Africa-America leadership experience in 2016. The first two travels were in New York and the last was in Washington DC. This is the global opportunity that we are talking about; a local boy from Yola that did not think that these things have come into existence until it began to happen.
So, if we talk about specifics, AUN had already prepared me for the global studies program. We have made different kinds of movements that may not be international but in our way, it is a global kind of movement.
So, that is the kind of opportunity that AUN gives you. It allows you to go into the community and lead by service. And then there is something; it's called the law of attraction. You attract good things to yourself, you do good things. It's a golden rule: do unto others what you want them to do unto you. You just find out that while you are doing good, the good comes back to you; it returns. So while we were contributing, AUN was giving us in return. So, all these travel that we've had, I mean. I'm not just going to talk about myself: we've got Basil Abia going to South Africa, going to the United States; Blessing Douglas going to the United States for different kinds of programs and all of that.
So, I feel AUN is the place for ambitious youths to explore. It is the University where students learn to lead by serving their community. AUN is the University that connects the local individual to the global community through various academic programs and service experiences.