By Sarah Baines

When Ngozi Ndukwe entered high school, she had a conversation with her school counselor that would change her life. It wasn’t expert advice what teachers to avoid and when to take P.E. It wasn’t even a pep talk on how to write prize-winning college application essays or what extracurricular activities to join.

Ngozi’s counselor told her that she couldn’t do it.

She told her that she had a learning disability and would be lucky to make it through high school, much less college.

“I’m glad in a way that she said that to me,” Ngozi says. “I became stubborn and fought against it.”

And the battle is almost won. Ngozi will graduate next May with a degree in psychology—something of a family profession, since her father is a psychologist and her mother a rehabilitation counselor. They work as a team for the state of Georgia to counsel and rehabilitate mentally and physically handicapped individuals then help them find jobs and re-enter society. Her mother can read Braille and use sign language, two skills Ngozi also hopes to acquire in the future.

“What they do is so inspiring,” says Ngozi. “As my uncle says, ‘You have to put forth more effort, but you can get there.’” Her uncle should know: He has been blind since he was nine years old, but he holds two masters degrees and a doctoral degree.

Ngozi is ready for the effort, but she has set her sights high, and plans someday to earn her doctorate in clinical psychology, perhaps at UGA as well.

“I predict great things for Ngozi,” says psychology professor Dr. Michael Kernis, one of Ngozi’s professors as well as her boss. “She is extremely intelligent, determined, confident, and self-aware. She knows where she wants to go and is willing to work very hard to get there.”

Ngozi assists Dr. Kernis with his research on the self and motivational processes. His course, “Psychology of the Self” was one of her favorite classes. It focused not only on the most current research and theories surrounding this area of psychology, but also on the individuals taking the class themselves. The students participated in exercises designed to increase their self-awareness, acceptance, and growth. Each person made personal discoveries that could be shared and discussed with the class. Classmates then reported how those issues could be resolved.

“I learned that I tend to care too much about keeping people happy, and sometimes they take advantage of that,” she says. “Now that I’m more aware of the fact that I do this, I can stop my behavior and it decreases my level of stress.”

Ngozi’s family is from Nigeria, on the western coast of Africa. Her parents came to the United States to go to school when they were in their early twenties. For sixteen years, Ngozi has lived with her parents, three sisters, and brother in Stone Mountain, and she attended a high school that was around 95 percent African American.

“I didn’t want to go to a historically black college,” says Ngozi. “I had already had that experience in high school. When I was choosing where to apply, diversity was something I considered.”

And although she admits that the UGA campus provided a culture shock at first, it has helped broaden her perspective and understanding of other races and stimulated her curiosity. She signed up for an Asian-American Literature class on a whim, but it ended up being one of her favorite courses. She read every book assigned in detail.

“Up until that class, everything for me had been either black, like in high school, or white, like in college,” she says. “I had never talked to Asian people before or had the opportunity to get to know them on a personal level. This class made me want to do that.”

Ngozi has since participated as a student panelist on “Minority Saturday,” a day on which prospective students and their parents come to campus to ask questions and engage in discussion. She also plans to work with the Admissions Office high school outreach program next year. This program would require her to return to her high school to talk about her UGA experience and encourage students to apply.

Becoming involved in campus activities helped Ngozi recognize the diversity of the UGA campus, and the opportunities it offers. She is a resident assistant in Soule Hall where she is responsible for 51 women students and must maintain a GPA of at least 2.5. Through her work in the dorms, she became involved in “Housing for Housing” a fundraising effort by the Housing Department to build homes for Habitat for Humanity. Last summer she spent time each week at the building site assisting in the construction of the home.

Her leadership on the Committee for Black Cultural Programming helped to bring musical artists “Roots” to campus, as well as actor Danny Glover. The committee’s “Week of Soul” has been extremely successful and popular for the past eleven years. Each day of the week is devoted to a different aspect of black culture. The topics include movies, music, games, authors, and the like.

Ngozi has been accepted into the Franklin College Student Ambassador program, and will start with that group in the fall. The diversity of the group appealed to her – students from several different states, from India, Germany, and even another student from Nigeria have participated in the program in the past.

“I came to UGA to learn about other cultures, meet new people, and learn more about why people do the things they do” she says. “My study of psychology and my participation on campus have helped me to do that.”

Whether it involves campus activities or academics, Ngozi sets a high standard for herself and enjoys the challenge. She looks beyond the obvious and disregards the negativity of others -- like that high school counselor years ago -- in order to achieve her goals.

“You never know what obstacles life will bring you,” she says, “but you have to take them and learn from them. Everything in life is a lesson.”