Many students before leaving high school always dream of studying in renowned universities. But they are hardly aware of the numerous obstacles and challenges they would face in the long journey to realizing the dream. Those from less privilege backgrounds too often only end up fantasizing.
My name is TAMBUA Rex and I am a Cameroonian. I learned about scholarships when I was in my final year in high school through my Physics teacher, AKABA James. I was selected as one of the mentees of the OPEN DREAMS organization, thanks to my leadership as a senior prefect of the school which gave me an opportunity to serve the school community in a distinct way.
Picture: Doing what I cherish most - Leadership!
During my time at Open Dreams, I experienced an unprecedented new global world of knowledge and fantastic people. My first mentor was Cristina BERNARDO who coincidentally is a co-founder of the organization. She assisted me in the application process. She edited my essays, provided me with info about good scholarships and application requirements etc. It was so touching to see her devote time judiciously and took it her whole duty to see me through in my next important stage in life! At the end of the period, we applied to just a few schools and I didn’t get any scholarship that year. By then, I was still learning the realities of applying for a scholarship. Earlier I believed once one applied for a scholarship, one is good to go and would definitely get the scholarship. But that wasn’t the case! Applying for scholarships entails commitment, seriousness, hard work, writing many essays, researching information, studying and taking exams like the TOEFL and SAT. Open Dreams covered the entire cost of these exams, transportation and lodging for me. Today, I can say it is a wise decision to always apply for as many scholarships as possible.
During my second year, I was introduced to a new mentor, Catalina GEIB, another amazing lady, someone I have never met face-to-face but who was so committed to my future, just like Cristina was. Separated by thousands of miles and the Atlantic, we were restricted to regular mentorship Skype sessions and email communication thanks to the technology in place at the Open Dreams Center. She assisted me relentlessly till I finally arrived! What a rigorous process it was! After applying to many universities across the world, I was fortunate to get a scholarship to study in one of Russia’s top universities, Peoples Friendship University of Russia.
OPEN DREAMS is an NGO whose mission is to assist bright students in preparing and applying for scholarships after they graduate from high school. OPEN DREAMS provides mentorship, tutoring, necessary finances, information, text book, Internet access, and also help us register for the necessary exams required by our various scholarships. OPEN DREAMS is really doing a great job and I hope that more of such organizations will come to existence. I learned a lot of lessons during my period of searching and applying for scholarships at Open Dreams. The most important ingredients for success are hard work, patience, diligence and courage.
Here in this picture, I am with the most awesome people I have met so far in my life! We had just wrapped up a football match with two co-founders of Open Dreams, Cristina and Hans on their inaugural and honeymoon trip to Cameroon! It's all fun in the mentorship at Open Dreams! The all girl-team beat the all-boy team in the football encounter!
Today, I look forward to a new adventure in my life!
Thank you, OPEN DREAMS!