Adebayo Ayomide Oshingbesan

Graduating Class of 2020, Class of 2021 and Class of 2022, Honorable Minister, Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Family and Friends, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, all protocols observed.

Good morning.

It is a privilege and honor to stand here today representing the class of Zoom, sorry, the class of 2022. When I got the email from the Office of Student Affairs that I was nominated as valedictorian of this great class, I was dumbfounded. This was partly because, I was not expecting it and secondly, this now meant I could wear a suit and not a t-shirt and jeans to my graduation ceremony.

I will begin my speech by quoting from a man I have come to admire in recent years – Jurgen Klopp. He once said, and I quote: “giving your absolute everything does not guarantee that you get anything. It’s just the only chance to get something.” This statement resonates with me because it highlights a very important lesson I have learned in my life – it is ok to give your best to a dream and seemingly get nothing in return. It does not mean that you should give less the next time another opportunity arises; it simply means that you should give your best again. Unless you are trading crypto and you get broke, you should learn to go again. From relationships to career goals to friendships, you should always go again. Like my mum says, whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. I got into CMU-Africa after my second application attempt, and this was after at least twenty graduate school application rejections in a span of two years. I knew it was going to be difficult getting into a machine learning graduate program with my petroleum engineering undergraduate degree. All that is behind me because here I am four years later, living the dream. Was I lucky? Perhaps. Did I earn that luck by failing forward? Absolutely. 

I know this story is not unique to me. I have had the opportunity to hear stories from my fellow graduates. For many of us, our paths were as non-linear as the RELU activation function. But today we stand at the end of this phase, celebrating the fact that things worked out in the end. CMU-Africa has enabled us to understand how much more we could achieve. Moving from someone who struggled with PFUN to someone who could complete deep learning would not have been possible without the molding effects of CMU-Africa faculty who took their time to not only teach but also as a mentor. A friend spoke to me of how she transformed from someone who was afraid of trying out anything new, to someone ready to fail because that is the only way to grow. Another fellow graduate testified to how his lesson was on self-value and this enabled him to pivot himself to a new field. For others, CMU-Africa opened them up to a whole new world of what is achievable – shifting them from a local mindset to a more global mindset through various multicultural interactions. We have CMU-Africa to thank for teaching us that what is seemingly impossible can be possible.  

On a personal note, I must confess that my most profound lessons at CMU-Africa were non-academic. During my term as the academic and research minister, I learned plenty about collaboration through my interaction with faculty, administrators, and various student bodies. I have developed relationships and lifetime friendships across the continent. As a big self-critic, I believed that giving your best meant 100%. If I didn’t get at 100%, it was not worth trying. This thinking was completely changed when I was a teaching assistant and an administrative assistant working with the Office of Admissions and Recruitment. The lesson was that your best might mean an 80%. You should always give it a go, regardless.

There is a flip side to learning through failure. Paraphrasing Klopp once more, “the only way failures or defeats will become a disaster is if we fail to learn from them”.  I am not ignorant of the fact that levels of expectations may differ from one individual to another. It is important that learning takes place. Remember, joining CMU-Africa seemed like a far-off dream, something impossible until it was not. As we embark on our next life journey where we will impact Africa and the world, I would encourage us to take the lessons of resilience, courage, and hard work into this new phase of our lives. Let us learn from those failures in the same way we learned from our assignments. The rejections and failures you have experienced are just feedback, it is not a verdict.

I want to appreciate all who have played a part in our success story. Today’s celebration is as much about us as it is about you. At the last graduation, student speaker Ozioma Paul rightly said that it takes a village to raise a child. To our parents, thank you for all the sleepless nights you had nurturing us into the adults we are now. To the CMU-Africa teaching staff, thank you for helping us grow both as individuals and as professionals. To the CMU-Africa administrative staff, thank you for supporting us and doing your very best to ensure our success.

CMU-Africa was a great preparation ground for every one of us. Through the gruesome schedule, we have been able to build and strengthen our capacity as individuals. To the graduating class of 2022, We did it! Let us always remember that time and chance happens to us all. Failures and uncertainties are a part of life. Fail fast. Fail forward. Let us learn to use these experiences to give our best again and again. Keep nurturing the relationships and skills you have built here at CMU-Africa. Finally, remember to pay this opportunity forward be it through mentoring, volunteering, or even by expanding someone’s worldview. It was a pleasure studying with all of you. Thank you for all the memories.