SAU Honors College

The SAU Honors College was founded in 2003 by Dr. David Rankin, president of SAU. Dr. Lynne Belcher served as founding director and recently retired from SAU. The Honors College seeks and admits qualified students who seek to pursue a serious academic program with equally gifted peers and committed teachers. Honors classes are small and provide academically enriching opportunities for students and the faculty who teach them. Currently, SAU enrolls nearly 170 honors students and graduates about 66% of admitees in four years or less. Anyone interested in applying to the Honors College or seeking further information should contact the director, Dr. Edward P. Kardas at epkardas@saumag.edu or at 870 904-8897.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Obidigbo Nzeribe: Bucket List


                  Jodi Pilcout in her best-selling novel  Handle with Care wrote “I wondered about the explorers who sailed their ships to the end of the world. How terrified they must have been when they risked falling over the edge; how amazed to discover, instead, places they had seen only in their dreams.”  For me, Growing up in Nigeria was very different from what the media portrays as life in Africa. It was a mix of cultures and influences (both local and western); listening to music from Fela, Tuface and Asa while mixing it up with music from Bruno Mars, Bon Jovi and Kanye West, watching CNN and watching NTA (Nigerian News). But as the years passed I realized that watching and listening could never be as real as being there, and so were my dreams - dreaming could never feel as good as accomplishing them. I believe that is the same way the explorers Jodi Pilcout wrote about felt, actually seeing the world they had only previously seen in their subconscious minds. That is the way I want to feel before I die, having accomplished my dreams.
                  The first thing on my bucket list is to meet my mentor Chinua Achebe, this is a dream which is very unattainable because Chinua Achebe died last year but if the concept of life after death works in my favor then that means death would not be a barrier but a bridge toward completing my bucket list.
                  Another one of my big dreams is to be as good a photographer as Ansel Adams or Alfred Stieglitz. I have always had a flair for photography since I was able to hold a camera and going into professional photography either part-time or full-time would be a dream come true.
                  I was that kid in the neighborhood who would always mix up a bunch of food and try to convince my friends that it was the new cuisine I had created. Or, I was the kid who spent hours in front of a computer screen trying to figure out what kind of big software I would create, or who would spend endless hours trying to write a novel that would get national recognition, Yes, I was that kid who wanted to be famous somehow responsible and Yes, I am still “that kid”, and it would be a great joy to me if I could somehow invent something that would be used all over the world.
                  If life is not lived well, according to what an individual defines as “well” then it is wasted. I believe so much in the French saying “La vie est belle” which translates to “life is beautiful” so the last things on my bucket list are to enjoy my life well and to recognize that every life is in fact beautiful no matter how small it is. I hope to complete these things before I die.
"We only live once but if we do it right then once is enough”- Mae West.

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