To my great delight, I was one of the successful candidates when I finally got my GCSE exam results last year. I scored high in this national exam and passed with grade A. To attain this grade was more the outcome of my hard work than it may otherwise be thought. Grade A! It was a pleasant surprise, do you not agree! Believe. No sooner had I been told my scoring grade A than I started kicking and playing about over excitedly for a while. Days passed and I still did not stop enthusing over my success. The excitement soon wore off and it was then I had to see my tomorrow’s university through the strained circumstances I was contending with.

Poor as my family is, I was too unable to go to neither an American university nor a British one. I liked these foreign owned universities simply because they provide their students with highly standardized educational service, but how hopeless and futile my desires were certain to be! Increasingly desperate, I felt obliged that I had no any other choice other than joining Amoud University in my home region, Awdal. Unlike my parents who their side Amoud University was held in high esteem, I showed very negative attitude to this university. In addition, I had lots to reason that. It was may overall impression that Amoud University dragged its feet only to hold the title of being named a university. I considered it being ill equipped to exercise proper efficiency. I recall also that people who see Amoud University through the darkness had a lot to do with my already weakening attitude towards Amoud University when they denounce it now and then.

The most saddening of all was, despite my parents like of Amoud University they were no financially up to cover the tuition fee the university charged. But had it not been a cousin of mine who helped to pay my university schooling from Canada, the feeling I conveyed and by which I appeared to be deeply alarmed would have been that it was no worse for me to stay home than to go Amoud University. I even thought, it was not worthwhile to finance money to a university that I was not certain the quality of the educational service it would provide me in exchange.

However, I attended the first year of the university, freshman, not only holding the special privilege to be named a university student but more importantly to please my parents who were insisting on my joining the university. Misleading though, this impression was, however, it was not until I joined Amoud University that I found out the exact opposite of my thoughts seemed to have been the case.

Qalinle, my university teacher, lectured us the very first class of the university we had ever attended. In this class, we were only introduced the university. Qalinle with a keen mind gave us a comprehensive explanation about the university courses, exam disciplines and required student commitment. And the following days we started the assigned courses. Among these courses was “The Regional Geography” lectured by the same teacher, Qalinle. Qalinle who is persuasive with the use of tact and thoughtfulness explained this course very deeply and revived interest in me.

On the other hand, we would always go to the library on Thursdays. Amoud university library, the most treasured asset, has always provided qualitative service to the library users. It has always been a quiet useful source of education, information storage and retrieval. As soon as you step at the entrance of the library hall, you are impressed by the well-planned physical layout of the library. Books are grouped in shelves in accordance with their field of studies. You can then get the right book instantly by referring to its shelf. The library is in the campus, out of the town, having the supposed silent atmosphere. On Thursdays, we would always read and make use of this library. In the first semester of the freshman class, I finished my first novel “Death at an early age” by Jonathan Kozol.

On the other hand, the huge number of the students who were to be my classmates had an effect on me. These highly motivated students were as many as 180 both men and women. I was already starting to make an interaction with them. And when they elected me the president of the freshman class I acquired a value plus my true worth, but it was not all a price to pay. I had all the qualities to lead them. And for the rest of the year I would always play an influential role as a leader.

In conclusion, only after I had examined very comprehensively these situations, did I begin to wonder what productive future Amoud University would hold for me. I felt more at ease then and approached my university, Amoud, with a new spirit marking a new era in my life.

The pen of Ahmed Abib Hayir

Amoud University Student

E-mail; hayir89@hotmail.com

Tell; 4409647 or 615138