In today’s interview, we feature an exceptional scholar who has topped the class as the Best Graduating Student of Law, from the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN)
With a stellar academic record and a First Class Honors degree, Rejoice Kalu has demonstrated intellectual excellence, unwavering dedication, and a passion for learning.
In this inspiring conversation, she shares her journey to success, revealing the driving forces behind their academic excellence, overcoming challenges, and their plans for the future.
We would like to know what your educational background is and please introduce yourself to our audience and readers
My name is Rejoice Kalu, I am a Law graduate of the University of Nigeria. Well, a bit about my educational background, not so much actually, primary school, secondary school and then the University.
I have also done a Diploma in digital marketing, that’s just my side interest. Besides that, I just obtained my LLB and then I’m pursuing my BL which is Barrister at Law from the Nigerian Law School, that’s just the next step, that’s pretty much it.
So I’d Like you to start by telling us what motivated you to go into Law
I get this question a lot.
I knew this profession to be a noble profession right, we had done this whole class in primary school where they taught us about professions and you know after medicine, they talk about law, engineering, and you know there was so much about how noble the legal profession was and just how you know the course is the last resort of the common man and how much impact it could make.
So I think that was the beginning of what spurred my interest in pursuing a career in law, and besides the mobility, I wanted something that would give me impact, the opportunity for impact and you know I felt that the legal field would do that for me as I progressed I realised that studying law would also give me the diversity that I wanted you to know.
Once you study law there’s so much that you can do with a law degree and so that was part of the reason why I decided to pursue a career in that part
So I can imagine you had so many memorable experiences while you were in school studying law, so can you tell us those experiences, the most memorable ones you had while you were studying law in school?
I mean they are so many. I think that probably the most memorable one was the day I wrote my last paper.
It was a journey of about 5 years and about 5 to 6 months because of the whole ASUU situation so that is a very memorable event for me in school.
There’s been a lot of highlights but there was a time I won a National competition and that really gave me so much exposure as a law student.
It was a Federal competition and I got a Federal award from the Federal government, I was in my second year at the time, so that created a whole lot of buzz and put me into sort of a mini limelight at the time so that was another memorable moment for me, and then serving as the president of the Christian law students, first of Nigeria, the UNN chapter, that was another one because that stretched me.
It allowed me to grow as a person, and as a leader, and it gave me the opportunity to impact the lives of a lot of law students.
My first weeks, my first month in school, all those were very very memorable experiences and then there are just so many times that I spent with friends, made relationships that I know would last a lifetime. That’s pretty much it.
Okay. So I’m very sure that there are areas in law that interest you the most. So can you tell us what those areas are and why?
As a law student, your interest continues to grow. I find that many people’s interests change when they get into practice for real but as of now, I’m interested in corporate law, corporate and commercial law, taxation, and corporate finance.
Anyway, corporate finance is not really law but corporate law is where I have the most interest right now and why? I’ve always found that I’ve been very good with my commercial courses. I am a very company-oriented person, whatever has to do with companies or commercial law, You’ll find me there, you’ll find me reading about that, you will find me trying to know more and I’m currently doing an internship with a corporate finance team just to upscale my knowledge on a practical level.
So Yeah that’s pretty much it, nothing too deep trust me and I’m very open because I know that as you go on and as you experience what it tastes like in practice, your interest takes shape, you know.
Right out of school what you’ve done is largely theoretical, so when you start to, you know, do it in the real corporate world, you see what it’s really like and what it really entails and to find out if this is somewhere you want to pitch your tent, so yeah.
Can you in layman’s language explain what corporate law means to us? I’m sure some of our audience and readers will like to know what that is.
Okay, It’s just really law, the law about companies. When you hear corporate law, corporate means companies, company structure, so it’s basically company law and that’s in layman’s terms but it’s so much larger than that, there’s so many areas that are intertwined there and there are so many law’s, regulation authorities that you are going to come across coupled with taxation.
A lot of regulation agencies that you will come across when you are doing corporate law but in layman’s terms, it’s law about companies, how companies operate and how they create them.
So can you tell us what your long-term and short-term goals are and how you plan to achieve them?
My long-term goal is to grow in the Legal space. I want to be a go-to person when it comes to my areas of interest, you know, corporate law, be a go-to corporate lawyer.
In future, I see myself working with international organisations and I hope that I can pursue that part too.
Short term, getting called to the Nigerian bar is the next thing on my career trajectory and after that, I will be pursuing my masters. So the steps to take towards that would be going to the Nigerian law school and then proceeding with my masters program.
I might not have the full picture but what I strongly believe in is that every day, I take a step towards my goals, I make sure that I am doing something that takes me closer, makes me get nearer to, you know, the person that I see myself being in the nearest future.
So, I want to see, I’m excited to see where my career takes me
Can you please tell us a time you demonstrated leadership skills and initiative during your time in school or just your experience overall?
So yeah. I mentioned that I served as president of the Christian Law Students First of Nigeria as an undergraduate.
When I became president, one of the things that I noticed was that you know, a lot of students were struggling academically, not just members but law students generally.
At the time that I came in, It was a season that we were just coming out of a series of strike actions, COVID, you know, and all of that, and I noticed that there seemed to be a gap between you know, learning in the classroom and understanding what was being taught and being able to ace your exam.
So that was one of the problems I noticed when I came in as president and I set out to make a difference in that field, in the academics of law students.
So what did I do? We already had an academic team set up but I intended to make sure that that department was active and we could see a real impact of the department in the faculty.
So what we did was, to set up a team and then created virtual platforms where online classes would be had after the normal classes so every level had a platform and there was a course time table for all of the classes and then we had to select tutors that will come on to teach the students so that they will understand some of these principles and I came up with my team, an initiative called acada-bible because it was a Christian association that was sponsoring that.
What it did was to explain legal principles in the simplest way to law students and also using scriptural references and so I received feedback, that helped a lot of people who became more invested academically and at the end of the session, we received very impressive feedback because this model, the model of having the challenge, we had the online tutorial, we had printed and past questions, printed material for law students just to help them academically and we got feedback, then that template was used in some other schools, in the chapel of some other schools and you know that’s just one of the qualities that leadership entails.
When you come into a space as a leader, you observe what needs to be done, where there is a gap or a problem that needs to be solved and then you come up with strategies, you come up with metrics on how to tackle that situation follow it through, creating a team, monitoring them and supervising and making sure that what you are doing is actually creating impact in the lives of the people that are following you as a leader.
So a leader to me is someone that can observe and that can recognise the problem besides all the other things that come with it and come out and step out to try to solve the problem.
So that was displaying problem-solving skills which is a very important leadership skill.
Can you tell us how you managed peer pressure and doing what you need to do for your academics?
Okay. So, well I always say that peer pressure wasn’t really so much of a challenge for me because I knew what I wanted and I was very very particular about the goal, what I wanted to achieve in school, you know.
So, I’ll say that being very very focused, being goal-oriented has a way of you know, keeping your head up in the game and then the kind of people that you surround yourself with has a lot to do with how you can manage pressure.
If you are not in the company of people who are like-minded, there’s a bigger tendency to swerve or sway away from the path that you have set out for yourself.
So I would say that first of all, how did I manage that? It didn’t come up to be a challenge because I’ve set a goal and I was very very intentional about hitting my goal and I surrounded myself with people of like minds, people like myself.
My friends are very goal-oriented people and so we are always there to encourage each other. The external pressure wasn’t so much because we already created like our own safe space, the principles that guide us and all of that.
Managing criticism, generally, if you are setting out to do anything, could be some sort of critical constructive. Sometimes, it could be destructive. When it’s constructive, of course, you have to accept that and make amends where they need to be and even when it’s not very constructive if there’s a truth to it, you just have to sieve out what is true and what you need to change and where you need to make amends.
These things were not things that I struggled with, thank God because I already had a specific target that I wanted to meet and I made sure that I always reminded myself.
At the beginning of every semester, I always write down my goals for that semester and so what that does is that it helps you, it keeps you focused.
Some people have stick notes, they put on their their walls, some beside their mattress every morning, and so what that does is that psychologically, you are reminding yourself of where you need to go, the things that you need to do to get to that destination that you’ve planned for yourself, and so that will help you a lot.
Even if you are faced with some form of peer pressure, you remind yourself, hey, I have a target, you know, and I have somewhere that I’m going and this is how to get there, I am going to stick with the plan.
So would you say these were the strategies you applied in school to get your goals and graduated a top student?
Yes. Those are some of the you know, the strategies definitely.
Goal setting is very important for whatever, even if you are not a student, you are a business owner, you are an employee, you have a target, once you have a target, you set a goal, and then you write out the key pointers that you need to hit, the sub-goals, things that you need to do to get to that goal that you have set for yourself and you stick to it.
You know they say if you reach for the sun and you don’t get it, you’ll land on the moon, there’s that saying, something like that but when you set a goal, very likely that you either hit it and even if you don,t hit it, you are just going to be a little less than what you’ve set, that’s what setting does for you.
Then I talked about association because association matters. These are besides the other specified academic things like being very serious with my lectures. I could say that I never missed a lecture except it was necessary but then you need to understand the kind of person you are.
Some people don’t do well with that. Some people don’t have to attend lectures and they are fine but I knew myself, I know that I am an auditory learner, I need to hear from the lecturer.
Other strategies, solving past questions, being very attentive in class, and taking every single thing that goes into my assessment very seriously. I take my tests very seriously, take my exams very seriously, try to practice past questions before the exams and even try to teach other people who helped me to learn.
So I knew myself very well and I knew the kind of strategies that would help me. It might be different for any other person because you don’t know what they are doing, you don’t know what their abilities are.
So I am a very ability-specific person, I believe that you need to be self-aware, you need to know yourself very well and some of the strategies that worked for you, you need to stick to them.
I never attended a night class for instance in school. Some people do night classes but I never did that because I realised that it doesn’t work for me.
So getting your strategies right, being very strategic, I always say it, is important to ace your academics.
