Achievement

When Diligence Pays Up

Rakibul Hasan
Photos: Udayan Ghosh

	Farzana Hossain.

What makes someone a good student? In this age of unbridled corporatisation, when education itself has become a product, finding the answer to the previous question can be rather tricky. Nowadays, it seems society values a student's ability of getting a good job with handsome salary more than a student's academic merits or efforts to seek knowledge. As a result, a large number of students from both public and private universities now sought after printed handouts of class lectures and presentation skills, which they believe will help them get their dream jobs rather than acquiring knowledge by studying in an in-depth manner. Fortunately enough, there are still conscientious students who, against all odds make their respective field of study the philosophy of their lives through delving deeper into the related field of literature and exhaustive research works to make new discoveries. Farzana Hossain a fresh graduate from Department of Economics, University of Dhaka (DU) and Monzima Haque, another fresh graduate from Department of International Relations, DU are two such hard working students.

For their extraordinary academic excellence, Monzima and Farzana have been awarded with honorary gold medals namely Abdus Samad Azad memorial gold medal and Shah A M S Kibria memorial gold medal respectively in the recently held 46th convocation of University of Dhaka. Introduced for the first time in the history of DU, the gold medals are intended to recognise the success of meritorious students with the best results in the BSS (Honours). The President of the People's Republic of Bangladesh Md Zillur Rahman awarded the gold medals to the two meritorious students amidst jubilant clapping from their friends, family and teachers during the convocation ceremony in DU.

Cherishing the proud memory of standing out as the best student of her batch, Monzima says, “I really did not feel anything special when I got to know that I am going to be awarded a gold medal in the convocation ceremony, I was rather concerned about the issue of parting with my friends at the end of my life at university. It was when my name was announced on the speakers and my friends burst out in exuberance, I felt that I must have done something special to make my friends, teachers and parents proud. I was trembling on my way to the stage and the time of finally obtaining the gold medal from the president seemed almost elusive to me.” Monzima achieved an extraordinary CGPA of 3.81 in BSS (honours) which is a record in the Department of International Relations, DU after it has introduced the semester system. According to the down-to-earth Monzima, success depends on a lot of hard work and a bit of luck. Monzima asserts to have no particular study routine; rather she emphasises on studying whenever one feels like.

	Manzima Haque.

“We should try to enjoy whatever we are studying, anything that we study, be it a novel or a real life event, if we think critically we can relate them to our respective field of study and can apply theoretical knowledge to them,” says Monzima. A dedicated student of International Relations, Monzima wants to conduct extensive research in the field of security and traditional realism and her preferred field of profession would be academia.

For Farzana Hossain, another gold medallist from the 46th DU convocation, the most important thing in one's life should be enjoying the life to the fullest. “Success in academic life is not mandatory, but can prove really useful in the long run. This will increase your confidence and will make your path easier. You may not get success in the way you want, but sometimes, failure can open a new door in your life. So have belief on the almighty and never lose hope,” opines Farzana. Currently working as a lecturer of Economics in East West University, Farzana achieved 70.9 percent mark on average in her MSS final examinations from Department of Economics, DU which is a record and got selected for Shah A M S Kibria Memorial Gold Medal 2010. According to Farzana, university is the best part of a student's life. So one should not confine oneself within the academic books, but should try to interact with more people to get practical experience.

“The campus life in DU was the most enjoyable for me. I had spent a lot of time roaming around the campus with my friends. I have never been an introvert and always took interest in wide range of issues especially travelling. The memory of attending programmes with my friends arranged by our department always makes me nostalgic,” says Farzana. In future, Farzana wants to devote herself in research with a view to bring about a positive change in the overall economy of Bangladesh.