FINALLY, I OBTAIN MY TRANSCRIPT AND SUBMIT MY APPLICATION
By now the pandemic was raging and countries around the world were shutting down. Nigeria had recorded a few cases and a lock down was imminent. It was crucial that I got my transcript before schools closed down. I knew that to expedite action on it I had to know someone within the system. The problem was I didn’t. Then I remembered a Facebook post where the debate was about the ease of collecting transcripts from different institutions in the country. One of my friends, a recent graduate of University of Nigeria, Nsukka, had posted a comment on the post saying he had collected his own without undue delay or stress. I sent him a message and he provided me with a name and phone number. I called the contact who informed me that the university had, in the past few years, been uploading degree results on a digital platform, but since I graduated many years before they started this service I would first need to get mine uploaded on this platform before I could apply for it. A few days after this discussion my results were uploaded on the data base. I went to the school’s website, generated a Remita Retrieval Reference number (RRR) and paid the official fees for the transcript. Five days later, the Records Department sent a copy to my email address. I smiled with expectation and clicked on the mail but my happiness froze as I scrutinized the attached document. My results had Faculty of Education written on it! I screamed inwardly and called my contact who assured me they would fix it. On the 23rd of March, I received another email and this time my transcript had the correct faculty – Faculty of Arts – written on it. The time on the email was 12.11pm. That same day, at about 4.00 p.m., UNN closed due to the lockdown. It had been a close call. At this point I must commend UNN for the professional way in which they manage their website. There’s always someone in the chat box to answer questions, and if you call the listed phone numbers, someone answers the call.
Armed with the soft copy of my transcript and the hard copies of other educational certificates, my earlier anxieties fizzled away. I scanned them to the specifications recommended by Columbia and started to upload them, one after the other, on the relevant sections. On the 7th day of May, 2020, I tapped the submit button. I had started the application on the 3rd of April, one month earlier.
To be continued.
Vivian Ogbonna's Blog 