Emelife Stella Chinelo from Nigeria topped the list of medal winners with 20 medals and five cash prizes during the 99th annual convocation of the University of Mysore here on Sunday.
Crawford Hall, the venue of the convocation, drowned in applause as the compere read out the long list of medals and awards which Ms. Chinelo bagged for topping the Chemistry postgraduate course.
Currently a teacher in Nigeria, Ms. Chinelo is now looking for research and fellowship opportunities for higher studies.
She graduated in Applied Chemistry from Usmanu Danfodiyo University in Nigeria and secured admission for her postgradute studies in Chemistry at the University of Mysore.
“I came to India in 2016-17 and I realised that academic work here is very intensive and challenging. So I spent a lot of time in the library, interacted with professors who were all helpful,” said Ms. Chinelo, who got married last December.
With long hours of studies, sometime extending to 20 hours a day, Ms. Chinelo said she was only interested in good grades and did not know that she would would bag 20 medals and five cash prizes.
“I am carrying a lot of memories from India, including the food. I tell people back home that Indians respect academic excellence and take education seriously and that is the way forward for our country as well,” she added.
For P. Sanjana Darla, going to college was a nightmare in the initial days as she said: “the size of the books scared me.”
She bagged 10 medals and three prizes and was the topper in M.A. Economics.
“I plan to go for higher studies and will apply to the London School of Economics,” she said.
“I expected to win five medals but 10 was unexpected,” she said, attributing her success to hard work and the support of her family and friends.
In all, 28,163 students qualified from various courses to receive their degrees. Of them 18,127 were women accounting for 64.5% of the students passing out of the university. There were 10,036 men accounting for 35.6%.
As many as 8,241 canddiates were given the master’s degree and 19,538 received their bachelor’s. There were also 384 candidates who were awarded Ph.Ds.
