By: Muhammed Lamin Drammeh
From sitting at home for three years due to the dearth of funds to begin her university education, after completing secondary school, 26-year-old Ya Adam Njie has stunned many by graduating Summa Cum Laude from the University of the Gambia as the overall best student with an astonishing CGPA of 4.123 as a major in Computer Science.
Despite the huge gender disparity, Ya Adam broke through the glass ceiling by becoming a beacon among her colleagues at the University of the Gambia.
Her story before beginning her studies is akin to many underprivileged young Gambians. When Ya Adam completed her secondary school in 2014 at Gambia Methodist, she sat at home for three years because her family could not afford to pay her tuition fee. While she dwelled at home, she reworked her mathematics to equip herself for a smooth journey while pondering over a field to study.
In 2017, Ya Adam’s aunty and her brother realized the need for her to start university education, three years after completing her secondary education, and gathered some funds which enabled Ya Adam to start her program in computer science before the Ministry of Higher Education gave her a full-time scholarship.
Asked what actually motivated her to choose computer Science over psychology or journalism, she pointed out.
“After high school, my initial dream was to be a psychologist. Then it was to be an electrical engineer and later on, a journalist. But then, one day, after a few hours of drawing, I decided to take a break and play games.
“Something clicked, and I thought, “I love art and I love playing games, why not figure out how to make games?”. So, I went onto Google and started my research. That [was what] introduced me to my first programming language, C. It was so fun because I could basically command something as powerful as a computer to do my bidding.
“It was thrilling! From then on, I moved on to learning C++ and eventually, I was able to start university and continue with Java and so much more.”
With the highest CGPA of 4.123, the University of The Gambia overall best student in the graduating class of 2022 shared with The Fatu Network her journey to being better than her colleagues in class, who were mostly males.
“So, during my first semester, while I was waiting for class to start, I would listen to a female rocket scientist, Olympia Le Point, talk about her journey. It served as my fuel, so whenever I was in class, the focus was to get as much from the lecturer as I can. Every single question I had relating to a topic, no matter how dumb, I would ask. Thankfully, my lecturers and classmates were very patient, and it helped me understand and remember concepts better.
“And I was also strategic with how I picked my courses. To make my study times more interesting, I would pick courses across fields which had some things in common, for instance, Calculus and Mechanics or Linear Algebra and Differential Equations.
“Overall, it was believing in myself and not letting the negative thoughts win, that helped get me through the tough times,” she explained.
Now being conferred a first-class degree in computer science with a gold medal, Ya Adam is yearning to study Artificial intelligence for her master’s and eventually, be great enough in her chosen field to work with fellow Gambian data scientists and build solutions that’ll benefit the country.
