Meet our 2017-18 First 500 scholar – Oluwapamilerin Ogunleye

How much did you enjoying being our first 500 scholar?

“It has been a big privilege and it has been really amazing. I remember when I got the email just screaming ‘oh my gosh, I got it!’

“It has been really useful for my time here at university, the fact that the first 500 students here at Kent thought something of my essay was just a hug ego boost to my writing style and my ideas. It showed me that people do care about what I think and what I think is valued at a high level, so that was really encouraging.”

You’re studying law, what type of law would you like to go in to?

“Right now I’m really interested in criminal and humanitarian law, so the whole international aspect of things is what I’m really looking into practising in the future.”

What does it mean to you to be the first 500 scholar?

“It reflects the present and the past, it shows the first 500 students of the university are still having an impact on the culture and the tone of the University, so I feel like I’m representing the past and the present and joining them together.

“It’s just a privilege to be recognised as someone because they liked my essays and they thought I had a good writing style. I think the first 500 students were really responsible for setting the culture and behaviour and the practises that we do practise here at Kent, so it’s a big deal to me.”

If you had a message for the first 500, what would you like to say?

“First of all I would like to say thank you for accepting me as their scholar of choice out of everyone who applied. I would also like to say thank you for just being brave enough to come to Kent, the first 500 people started Kent, started the culture, started a lot of the traditions and behaviours that I am now enjoying.

“Thank you for just being yourselves at Kent and helping to push and drive other people to think ‘wow this university is amazing’, so thank you!”

Tell me about the University of Kent itself?

“One of the things that drew me to Kent was the campus itself, it’s really beautiful, there are lots of green spaces and it’s really open. I’ve lived in the same environment all my life so coming to Kent was literally a breath of fresh air. You have the modern buildings and the older ones. It’s just a beautifully situated campus so it’s really nice.”

What would you like to do later in life?

“I hope to practise law and be an advocate, so the dream is to be in the international field, maybe Amnesty International or the UN and locally a prosecutor for the CPS. I would like to work with people who may not be able to get justice and just impact people on that level.”