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Success Story: Mariam Al Teneiji - BA ZU Alumni 2013

Mariam Al Teneiji - BA ZU Alumni of 2013 from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, majored in International Affairs with a minor in Applied Psychology - #Proud_ZUAlumni 

I know we all love reading success stories, especially when it is narrated by alumni. So, lets have one.

             "My name is Mariam, and I am ZU’s alumnus. In 2011, I walked into ZU Dubai’s Campus with my brother. I had no dreams, or desire to study or to join ZU. My brother had forced me to come with him, why I was in that stage, someone might ask? I dropped out of my university, and I had changed my major more than once, I lost years of my life span in trying to find the right major. When I dropped out of the university, I decided to stop trying, and I embraced all the descriptions inscribed to a drop off student. However, my brother had another description and another belief. In the admission office, my brother spoke on behalf of me, I was just staring at the faces surrounded me. The director told my brother: “You know that you are lucky, today is the deadline for accepting application for the spring course. Tell your sister to fill the form”, as I was seated in her office, and I was given a pen. The door was open, and my brother told me, he needed to take care of something. While I was filling the form, I heard my brother saying: “This is her previous transcript, with the name of the courses that she took, can you please count the credits for her?” I dropped the pen on the floor, when I heard that and went to my brother, who was handing the admission officer the “green papers”, “how could you do that! Please give me these papers!” My brother pulled my hand, and the lady in the admission officer was flipping the papers. I was choked up with my tears, those papers had shamed me, and they were evidence of my “failure”. She looked up at me, and said: “Most of your grades are A’s, and your GPA is 3.8!” I told my brother that I don’t want to continue, and I needed to leave. He leaned down to grab the pen, and sat, ”Okay, sign here, and take the key, you can go back to the car!” I signed, and left my brother, who was hunched, and focused on filling the papers! I was walking with my head down, hallowed.

At that stage, I was not speaking, or eating, I was scared to raise my head. In my first course at ZU, one of my professors, asked a question, and she was staring at the faces of the students looking for an answer, she noticed that I was trying to mouth something. She walked heading to my desk, and put her hands on my desk, “Just say it”. I trembled, and talked in a shaking voice, “Raise your voice, I want everyone to hear you!” I raised my voice, and the professor clapped her hands, and said:” Excellent! What is your name?” I whispered “My name is Mariam!”, Raise your voice Mariam!

ZU helped me find my voice, and it taught me to raise it, to make it heard. ZU had empowered me until I reached to that point, where I stood to collect my badge, where my name showed under ZU. I wore my badge, and looked up to the banner “Graduation ceremony, under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak” I smiled as I stood in front of Her Highness. I took off my badge, and placed it on the desk, and took my suitcase and entered the airport to start my journey to MA at Durham University in UK. I then took off my graduation gown, and placed my passport and my new certificate on the table, and I was given a new laptop to start a new journey at Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy (AGDA). I stood in front of Shaikh Abdulla bin Zayed, one hand on Quran, the other hand holding the paper, and raised my voice as I had been taught in ZU, and recite the “diplomat oath”. Sheikh Abdulla bin Zayed was smiling at me, as I went to shake his hand and when I walked away from the podium, I raised my head to find Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed smiling at me, extending his hand to shake mine to congratulate me for graduation from AGDA. I walked away smiling, to see an email from Prime Minister Office to inform me that I have been chosen to be part of UAE Youth Government Leaders Program. I scrolled down, to find myself in front of Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid, who was congratulating me for graduation from the program. I smiled, while I was stepping down from the stage, to go to another experience, where I find myself signing my first, then second published book.

With all these experiences, I never forgot that lady, who was failing to hold her pen, who was walking alone, who was too scared to find her voice, let alone raise it. I wish I could go back to her, and tell her that “you are going to be okay!” It doesn’t matter if you had reached the bottom, or touched the sky, you are not going stay at one stage forever.

Success to me now means that, where I am longer scared of reaching the bottom, and knowing how to stand up, when I reach it. Thanks to my brother who believed in me, for grabbing the pen, I know if you weren’t with me, I’ll never know the true meaning of success.

Thank you ZU for helping me find my voice, for supporting me, for making me believe in myself, and for enabling me to dream.

To students, who changed their majors, and still searching for the right major, the one, who are struggling in whatever they are facing, and the one, who dropped their pen and are too tired or scared to pick it up, “you are going to be okay”!"

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