Geisha Kow­lessar

Ab­hi­nav Karan, of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege Ch­agua­nas and Shelemi­ah Pe­terkin of St Joseph's Con­vent, St Joseph, are the Pres­i­dent's Medal win­ners in the Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (Cape).Both stu­dents vis­it­ed their re­spec­tive sec­ondary schools yes­ter­day to be con­grat­u­lat­ed by teach­ers and peers af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's an­nounce­ment on Thurs­day dur­ing a lap­top dis­tri­b­u­tion ex­er­cise at the St James Sec­ondary School, St James.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Karan, who is en­rolled at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, as a first-year stu­dent study­ing med­i­cine said he was not sur­prised by his ac­com­plish­ment."I knew I had worked hard and that I was like­ly to win it. My par­ents were very hap­py. They are still very hap­py," Karan added.Say­ing he wants to be a neu­ro­sur­geon, Karan said at the mo­ment he was en­joy­ing cam­pus life.

His suc­cess, he added, was due to his own self-dis­ci­pline as he had stopped go­ing out and would study eight hours per day.Pe­terkin, of Mo­ri­ah, To­ba­go, came to Trinidad to en­roll in Form Six.Asked why she chose Trinidad over To­ba­go, Pe­terkin said that was "per­son­al."While she was work­ing to­wards a schol­ar­ship she, how­ev­er, nev­er ex­pect­ed the Pres­i­dent's Medal.Say­ing she felt hap­py Pe­terkin said: "At the same time I am very hum­bled and my heart is re­al­ly filled with a lot of grat­i­tude.

"Thanks first of all to God, to my par­ents to my friends who sup­port­ed me. Every­one who is there in my life I am re­al­ly great­ful."I nev­er had the Pres­i­dent's Medal on my mind," Pe­terkin added.Eco­nom­ics or ac­count­ing is her field of choice.On stu­dents who might some­times feel pres­sured by the rigours of study­ing Pe­terkin said hard work, sac­ri­fice and de­ter­mi­na­tion were im­por­tant com­po­nents.

"First I will say to trust God and put their best foot for­ward. At the end of the day it is about do­ing your best and not com­par­ing your best to some­one else's own."You have to make a lot of sac­ri­fices...sac­ri­fic­ing sleep, sac­ri­fic­ing to do the things you love to do but in the end it pays off."