Studysuccess?

Studysuccess?!

“Just call me Diallo”

Imagine moving to a foreign country and not knowing anyone. The only means of communication you have, is non-verbal communication since the language in this foreign country is completely unfamiliar to you….That is what happened to me approximately fifteen years ago. But despite everything, you want do something, achieve something and not let the circumstances put you down….

Over fifteen years ago, Diallo Mamadou came to the Netherlands from the African country Guinee. Diallo found himself in a country where the language was completely unfamiliar to him, he had no family and he didn’t know a single soul; but was still expected to build a life for himself.

I met Diallo as one of his teachers on the first day of the work-study Programme: twelve first-year students, who all combined working and studying, aiming towards a bachelor’s degree. But Diallo faced extra challenges compared to his class mates: one of them was mastering the Dutch language.

In the fourth year of the bachelors’ programme, right before the defence of his final thesis, Diallo came to me with a special request. He wanted his thesis and his defence to be graded by teachers whom he’d never worked with before because he wanted to be judged on his abilities and the skills he had required and not on his personal circumstances. He wanted to ensure that the grading process would be as objective as possible.

This request was granted and……he successfully completed his thesis and passed the oral defence. Due to his enormous motivation and perseverance, Diallo received his bachelors’ degree in 2006.

Shortly after his oral defence, I found Diallo crying in one of the corridors of the school. He was so excited about his enormous achievement, but also so sad about the fact that he had no family around to share and celebrate this enormous milestone.

At the graduation ceremony, we as his teachers looked most forward to handing Diallo his diploma; we were all so proud of him. But we were also confronted with our own inadequacies. We all felt that Diallo deserved more than “just” a diploma: we wanted to acknowledge his enormous drive and perseverance and wanted to emphasize that “success” cannot always be measured by grades alone. But the only formal way to do that was by awarding him a “with honours” mentioning on his diploma. And this was not possible, because his overall grades did not meet the “honours” standard. Although we all felt that Diallo’s achievements deserved more, we were not able to express that in something visible...

A few years later, Diallo’s story resulted in the Retail Business School “personality award”. This award recognizes those qualities in a student that cannot be measured by traditional methods in higher education, such as personal development, acquired skills, etc.

The Award tekst:

Obtaining a degree from a university of applied sciences is an important achievement in a person's life. With its study program and guidance from its team of lecturers, the Retail Business School does not only want to prepare students better for the job market, but also wishes to motivate them to contribute to society. Some achievements cannot easily be measured based on set criteria or scores because they are proof of great personal strength and determination. The Retail Business School Personality Award is annually presented to a student who has demonstrated great strength and a tremendous drive in achieving formulated goals. It recognizes a student who has acquired all necessary knowledge, skills and expertise despite sometimes challenging circumstances.

We lost sight of Diallo after he’d graduated. We did search for him, but were unable to track him down. Some weeks ago, me and my colleague Jan Lamberts (one of Diallo’s former teachers) finally succeeded: we arranged to meet with Diallo.

This turned out to be a very special meeting in which Diallo told us what had happened to him after his graduation.

Diallo had continued working as assistant store manager for a year. After that, he chose to take a different direction; he chose to become an interpreter for the IND (department of justice, immigration and naturalization services). After that, he took similar positions at the TVcN (Dutch Centre for translation and interpreting services), the Dutch OM (Public prosecution office), the Concorde Group BV, the Dutch Aliens Police and the RvR (Dutch judicial aid’s council).

Furthermore, Diallo works as coordinator at the “Eigen Kracht Centrale”, an agency that helps families with making a family group plan. He mediates between families and institutions, where relationship have been compromised, which suits Diallo very well given his language skills and knowledge of families from different ethnic backgrounds.

For a number of years, Diallo is also active in initiating projects in Guinee, in order to “pay it forward” in his country of origin (see attachment). His ambition and drive are still strongly present. Diallo’s’ goal is to work out a plan in which he is able to strengthen his native country by means of education. Diallo’s’ view is that education is the key to making people stronger and self-sufficient. Educated people will enable people to care not only for themselves but also their surroundings. Developmental aid, in Diallo’s opinion, should have focus on enriching people by means of education. And he wants to be an active participant in that process.

Unleashing potential in students staff & surroundings

Of course, we presented Diallo with “his” award during our visit. On December 15^th, he will travel to Guinee for a number of weeks to set up one of his projects there. The award he received moved min greatly. He will bring the award with him to Guinee to show his family.

I asked Diallo if he would be willing to share his story with us at the University when he returns from Guinee. Rbs, where “study success” is still too often associated with terms as grades, speed, drop out rates, etc.

Study success to me (as I also experienced it during my visits to Associate Colleges in the US) is something different: it is when someone achieves to acquire an academic grade and is able to, within a year, improve self suffiency and is able to be a (more) productive member of society.

This point of view, in my opinion, represents what we at Stenden define as “unleashing potential in students, staff and surroundings”. Therefore, I’d like to re-introduce Diallo to our team, so that everybody knows where the personality award originated from. And because I think that Diallo can make our school realize that “success” CANNOT only be defined by grades, results and standard testing. Back to basics: it should ALSO be about unleashing potential in students, staff and surroundings.

Diallo is happy to come and visit us in the near future and share his story. So we will hear from him soon!