Nigerian, Emmanuel Ohuabunwa Breaks Academic Record At John Hopkins University

I was more than elated when I heard this news. The first time the Academic Record is broken at this prestigious University in the United States.
As the headlines blared, 22-year-old Emmanuel Ohuabunwa has emerged as the best graduating student in the John Hopkins University, the USA with a grade point of 3.98 out of 4.0 in Neurosciences. with his efforts has won himself a scholarship to Yale University to get a degree in Medicine
  
He has also become a member of Phi Beta Kappa Society, a prestigious honor group that features the membership of 17 US Presidents, 37 US Supreme Court Justices, and 136 Nobel Prize winners.

I did a victory dance and said a silent prayer to my ancestors. As Nigerians in the diaspora, we are constantly under scrutiny often from ignorant minds. 
Partly because the Western media, which only focuses on the negative behavior of a few Nigerians, like every nation does not have them.


Speaking about how he moved to the US, Ohuabunwa said “my parents moved the whole family when I was 13 years old. I was about to begin SS1 at Air Force, Ibadan. When I got to the US, I was enrolled with my age mates, which meant at 13, I was in middle school.
“I went to Fondren Middle School, which was in the middle of the ghetto. That was one of the darkest years for me because I encountered a lot of peer pressure. Some of the students, ignorant about Africa, bullied me and called me names such as ‘African booty scratcher because to them, Africans were dirty and scratched their butts all the time.
“Some asked me if I lived in mud huts and ate feces for breakfast"

“I remember one day, when I was walking to the school bus, a boy came from behind and punched me in the face, called me an African, and walked away. It took everything in me not to retaliate. I knew that God had put me in the U.S for a purpose and it did not involve fighting or selling drugs or doing the wrong things.

“My experience during that year gave me a thick skin. I learned to stand for what I thought was right even when the opposition seemed insurmountable. I also learned to look at the positive in all situations. Even though these kids were bullying me, I was still gaining an opportunity to school in America and nothing would stop me from making the best of this opportunity.

 Worried that his parents might not be able to sponsor him to the university, Ohuabunwa purposed to work very hard. He did and when the result of the PSAT came, he performed so well that he won the National Achievement Scholar.


By virtue of this award, he received certificates of recognition from various organizations including senators from the Congress of both Texas and the US. He also received scholarships from the University of Houston; Rice University, Texas A&M Honors College, and many more.
He had also won the Principal’s Award during the annual awards ceremony at DeBakey High School.
“I studied Neuroscience because I was fascinated with the brain, its control of our behaviors and how various diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, lead to a decline in its activity. I also minored in Psychology because I wanted to understand disorders in the psyche. What causes bipolar disorders or schizophrenia.
I did not just want to label them as crazy but to understand what causes these conditions and how we can treat them,’’ he explained.

 At the undergraduate level, Hopkins was ranked ^#13 among National Universities by U.S. News and World Report (USNWR). It is ranked ^#6 in the nation in the high school counselor reputation rankings. The 2010 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) ranked Hopkins ^#18 internationally (^#16 nationally) and 3rd in the world for Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy.  In 2010, Johns Hopkins ranked 13th in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings   and 16th in the 2011 QS World University Rankings.^[61][62][63] Johns Hopkins also placed ^#2 in the 2010 University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP), ^#2 in the 2011 HEEACT – Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities, ranked ^#7 among Top Performing Schools according to the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index (FSPI) in 2008,  and was listed ^#9 among research universities by the Center for Measuring University Performance in 2007.[