Never Again: Landing In America V

Never Again: Landing in America V

About a month before I got the rejection 
email from GS, I finally called a family 
friend of mine, B, who also lived in Maryland 
not too far from my school and whom 
I had met once when she holidayed in Lagos. 
Her parents were friends with mine and my 
mum had been asking me to call her up 
but laziness and procrastination made 
me not to do so until sometime in March. 
She came to pick me up from school, 
bought me lunch, took me to Dave and 
Buster's, and bought me a top. 
On our way home, while we were talking, 
I mentioned I had been trying to find a 
job since my first semester without 
much luck and she told me her elder 
sister knew the manager of the 
IT Division at one of my school’s 
libraries and she’d speak with her 
and get back to me.  
She called me a few days later, 
gave me the manager’s number who 
asked me to come see him shortly after. 
He asked me a bunch of questions when 
I went to see him and offered me a job. 
I couldn’t believe it. 
I had sent application upon application, 
walked the length and breadth of campus 
only to get a job purely by referral. 
I wished I had called up B months earlier 
but such is life.
The job paid $10/hour – I worked 20 hours 
per week and we were paid bi-weekly. 
Less taxes, my net income was over 
$600/month - which was more than 
enough to pay my rent and leave me 
with enough to live on. 
For the first time since I arrived at school, 
I stopped converting dollars to naira 
in my head before making purchases. 
I made a few friends at work and I 
actually liked my job. 
Some parts of it were menial but others 
involved upgrading the OS of systems 
and trouble-shooting device-related 
issues for the Library staff. 
The major project we did was to configure 
new MAC desktops and replace all the 
windows desktops with the new macs. 
Though I didn’t get the internship, 
I had a job I could work at during summer 
for 40 hours/week but I wasn’t too keen 
on it and I still kept looking for internships 
wherever I could find them. 
I saw an internship opportunity on my 
school’s job portal sometime in May 
and applied for it.
I knew the pay wouldn’t be great and 
the job description wasn’t my preferred 
choice but I did not want to work at the 
Library all summer. 
I applied for the role, interviewed for it 
and a few days later, I was told I did not 
get it. 
But as luck would have it, their candidate 
of choice turned down the offer and the 
internship was offered to me seeing as I 
was the second preferred candidate. 
It was an application support/QA role 
that only paid $13/hour but I accepted 
the offer. 
I quit my job at ITD and asked my manager 
to hold my spot for me as I planned to 
return during the fall semester. 
Little did I know God had better plans 
for me. 
My new job was at Columbia, MD which 
was about 30 mins from my house via car 
and about 2 hours by bus. 
I couldn’t afford to uber daily and joined 
a classmate of mine and some other 
guys working in the area to get a rental 
car and split its cost and the cost of gas 
among ourselves.
There were 5 of us and three of them 
were Indians, the 4th was a Pakistani 
and I was the 5th. 
The first 2 weeks were pleasant enough 
and to date, I don’t know what happened 
but from the third week, the commute 
became a hostile environment. 
I would spare you most of the details but 
on more than 2 occasions, they failed to 
show up to pick me for work and offered 
no apologies or reasons for their actions. 
At some point, one of the guys who was 
a year ahead of me and was a full-time 
hire bought a car and we used his car 
instead. 
On my last day at my job, he literally 
insulted me from my apartment until 
he arrived at my office, and rudely 
asked me to GTF out of his car. 
That day, I had to call a friend of mine, 
F, to pick me up from work.
Anyway, my job was supposed to be 
a QA role where I was expected to find 
issues with 2 applications created by 
the company and report them to the 
developers to have them fixed. 
When the applications were fully functional, 
I would then support the external 
customers using them and resolve 
whatever issues they might have. 
I “played” with the application for the 
first 2 weeks and reported whatever 
defects I found but soon discovered 
the applications were not ready to be 
launched for external use and there 
was going to be little or no work for 
me to do most of the time. 
When I accepted the job, I already decided 
in my heart that I was going to work as 
hard as possible
This made me curious about other functions 
of the company and I found out that the 
operating systems used by their servers 
were going to reach end-of-life (they 
would become obsolete and unsupported 
by Microsoft).
I learned from the ever-dependable google 
and youtube how to upgrade servers and 
sought permission from my boss to upgrade 
all the servers used at the company. 
He agreed to let me do this save for 
one server. 
Why is this information important you 
may ask? You will find out soon. 
My parents paid my 2nd-semester tuition 
and I was able to live on my job and 
internship money but it wasn’t enough 
to pay for my 3rd and 4th-semester 
tuition and since I didn’t want to keep 
burdening my parents, I continued to 
search for Graduate Assistantships (GA) 
(roles that pay for your tuition and give 
you a stipend). 
I applied for several GA positions with 
no luck and even went as far as asking 
a 2nd-year coursemate, who had a GA,
 to recommend me to his boss upon 
his graduation since I had heard that’s 
what most people did but that fell through.
During my internship, I came across a GA 
position on the campus job portal with 
a job description that required the 
applicant to have experience resolving 
IT issues for staff, working with servers 
and recording, and editing online classes. 
Because of my on-campus job and 
internship roles respectively, I was 
capable of handling the first 2 requirements 
and figured I could learn on the job for 
the 3rd requirement. 
I applied for the role, writing a strong 
cover letter highlighting my past 
accomplishments and the value I hoped 
to add on the job and updated my 
resume to highlight all the experiences 
that matched the job description. 
I was scheduled for an interview and 
I prepared for it as best as I could. 
I ran into one of my classmates while 
waiting for my turn and he told me he 
saw the Nigerian guy I didn’t click with 
go in ahead of him. 
Anyway, I went in for my interview, 
turned on my sister-happiness and 
extroverted personality, answered 
the questions as best as I could, 
and sent thank-you emails to the 
two interviewers – I wasn’t sure I’d 
get the role given the competition 
but I was hopeful.
A few weeks after the interview, while 
at work, I got a mail from the hiring 
manager. 
I was so afraid to open it, I had to go 
outside in case it turned out to be a 
rejection and I was going to cry. 
I opened the email and saw that I had 
been given a conditional offer that 
would be confirmed or rescinded 
based on letters provided by my 
references. 
I literally couldn’t believe it. 
I had my hand over my mouth for the 
longest time in disbelief and tears of 
joy streamed down my face. 
I knew I was going to get the role 
because I had references who knew 
me well and would write strong letters 
of recommendation on my behalf. 
I asked my boss at the library, my professor 
who was impressed by how radically 
I turned my grade around, and my course 
adviser who knew my grades to write the
 letters. 
A week later I was offered the job for 
the next session. 
The GA position came with full tuition 
payment (about $10000 for 3 courses
 per semester), a stipend of $20/hour 
(a 20-hour workweek was equivalent 
to a $1600/month gross-income), and 
an office of my own whose key I kept 
and could access at any time.
My boss at my internship role had been 
asking me if I would continue working 
with them through the fall semester 
and I had told him I would get back 
to him. 
As soon as I got the GA offer I told him 
I would not be returning in the fall. 
You cannot imagine my happiness. 
Only a handful of my classmates had 
GA positions and I was one of the 
chosen few. 
I was going to go from $0/month income 
to about $1240/month net income with 
my own office where I could study alone 
without any disturbance. 
Of course, the first people I told were 
my parents and siblings and they were 
incredibly happy for me. 
Now I could eat what I wanted, go 
wherever I wanted without worrying 
about money, or feeling guilty about 
spending money. 
Never again would I fear opening my 
mailbox and seeing bills I couldn’t pay. 
Never again would I convert dollars 
to naira in my head before making 
any purchase. 
And most importantly, at age 26 going 
on 27, my greatest prayer had been 
answered – I would no longer need 
to depend on my parents or anyone 
for money and I had finally achieved 
financial freedom.
I had arrived 
To be continued…