Timilehin Ogunwole is a Biology, Pre-Nursing major at Alcorn State University (ASU). She was born and spent all of her life in Lagos, Nigeria before coming to the United States to continue her education.
Ogunwole chose to attend Alcorn because she felt she had been led to Alcorn by God as she had experienced a lot of hardships getting into the University. She has always possessed a love for Biology and Biological Sciences. In addition to that, she would like to continue on to medical school but also have a career to fall back on that will not force her into obtaining a Master’s degree. These factors made her choice of major an easy decision.
Living as an international student, Ogunwole has significantly less opportunities and is quite limited. She states, “It limits your ability to get to things that you know you’re qualified for. The only quality that you don’t have is the fact that you’re not an American citizen.” Ogunwole is not just limited by her international status because she has had the opportunity to be exposed to a variety of cultures and is more appreciative of different people from different cultures than herself.
Ogunwole is the President of the International Multicultural Student Organization (IMSO). She has always had a passion for leadership and is a believer of the sentiment that leadership is service. She loves to serve despite the stresses of the job as it gives her the opportunity to use her skills to help others. She previously served as Miss IMSO for the 2018-2019 school year and already held a grasp of the inner workings of the organization. She holds big dreams for the IMSO. She hopes that it will live up to its name and truly become international and multicultural, giving people from all walks of life the opportunity to interact. The IMSO is all inclusive and open to all, whether domestic or international, everyone can learn from each other.
Ogunwole is a strong believer in God and Jesus Christ. “My faith is the central part of my life,” she said. It is her belief that Christ gave her life meaning. She powers through her struggles in school with the aid of her identity in Christ. She is also one of the founding members of a fellowship on campus which she felt she was led to start before her arrival on campus. It wasn’t a majorly planned event, but a meet-up under the stairs to fellowship with other believers turned into a stable body that continued to grow. Ogunwole strongly believes that God’s heart is in the fellowship and is glad to be given the chance to be a stewardess over it.
The fellowship also provides her with a support system because as Christians, they are tasked to come together as a unit, which is the body of Christ. On days where she came to the fellowship down and discouraged, she left completely invigorated. Those in her fellowship are her family. She would advise international Christian students to find a fellowship of believers and keep sight of what’s important.