Je­hue Gor­don

Many stu­dents in the Caribbean, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go, face a sig­nif­i­cant de­ci­sion as they ex­plore their ed­u­ca­tion­al path­ways. They must choose be­tween mi­grat­ing to an­oth­er coun­try to pur­sue ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion or at­tend­ing a lo­cal uni­ver­si­ty. Un­sur­pris­ing­ly, many go to the Unit­ed States or oth­er parts of the world to con­tin­ue their ath­let­ic ca­reer and pur­sue ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion. While go­ing abroad may seem like an ex­cit­ing and pres­ti­gious op­por­tu­ni­ty, there are nu­mer­ous rea­sons why stay­ing and at­tend­ing a lo­cal uni­ver­si­ty is the bet­ter choice.

Stay­ing at home to pur­sue ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion of­fers sev­er­al ben­e­fits, such as con­nec­tiv­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty and sup­port sys­tems, cost sav­ings, fa­mil­iar­i­ty with the lo­cal cul­tur­al land­scape, and adding val­ue to so­ci­ety. These fac­tors im­pact pos­i­tive­ly on aca­d­e­m­ic and ath­let­ic per­for­mance. My sto­ry as a stu­dent-ath­lete is a liv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny of these ben­e­fits.

First­ly, at­tend­ing a lo­cal uni­ver­si­ty guar­an­tees a com­fort­ing com­mu­ni­ty and sup­port sys­tem. Fam­i­ly and friends are just a short dri­ve or phone call away, pro­vid­ing in­valu­able ease and se­cu­ri­ty dur­ing the tran­si­tion to uni­ver­si­ty life.

In con­trast, study­ing abroad can be lone­ly, hav­ing to nav­i­gate a new en­vi­ron­ment with­out the sup­port of loved ones. Ven­tur­ing over­seas be­fore the mind is ma­ture enough to han­dle the chal­lenges of every­day life can re­sult in in­tense and se­vere men­tal is­sues. Grades and ath­let­ic per­for­mance can al­so be af­fect­ed neg­a­tive­ly.

At nine­teen, I signed my first pro­fes­sion­al con­tract with sports­wear gi­ant Adi­das, choos­ing to at­tend uni­ver­si­ty lo­cal­ly and forego the Unit­ed States stu­dent-ath­lete sys­tem. Can you imag­ine young me with min­i­mal do­mes­tic ex­pe­ri­ence and sole re­spon­si­bil­i­ties bal­anc­ing uni­ver­si­ty oblig­a­tions, youth peer pres­sure, and pro­fes­sion­al de­mands? It was a bless­ing to stay on cam­pus and have my mom cook the warm meals I had been ac­cus­tomed to while just hav­ing to fo­cus on my ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing. It gave me the re­quired nour­ish­ment and the love and warmth of close fam­i­ly sup­port.

Tu­ition fees and liv­ing ex­pens­es are of­ten low­er at lo­cal uni­ver­si­ties, re­duc­ing the fi­nan­cial bur­dens on stu­dents and their fam­i­lies. Stu­dent-ath­letes’ aca­d­e­m­ic and ath­let­ic goals can be pur­sued by study­ing at lo­cal ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tions with­out ac­cu­mu­lat­ing sub­stan­tial debt and start­ing a ca­reer on a firmer fi­nan­cial foot­ing.

In ad­di­tion, with lo­cal gov­ern­ment sup­port, these pro­grammes are much more af­ford­able through the sub­sidised Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es (GATE) pro­gramme. Giv­en that the ex­change rate is 6.78 Trinidad and To­ba­go dol­lars (TTD) to one Unit­ed States dol­lar, it was eco­nom­i­cal to re­pay my loan in TTD. Thank­ful­ly, based on the terms of my con­tract, I was af­ford­ed a school al­lowance in Unit­ed States dol­lars. Giv­en that most of my ex­pens­es (tu­ition) were cov­ered through the GATE pro­gramme, I was able to save for post-uni­ver­si­ty life af­ter cov­er­ing for oth­er ex­pens­es such as books, and oth­er mis­cel­la­neous fees.

Fur­ther­more, lo­cal uni­ver­si­ties of­fer a fa­mil­iar and com­fort­able learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment. Fa­mil­iar­i­ty with lo­cal cul­ture and cus­toms elim­i­nates the need to adapt to a new and po­ten­tial­ly over­whelm­ing en­vi­ron­ment. The known so­cio-cul­tur­al en­vi­ron­ment al­lows for fo­cus on stud­ies and ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties with­out the added stress of nav­i­gat­ing a for­eign cul­ture.

Study­ing at home pro­motes com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment and en­gage­ment through vol­un­teer work, in­tern­ships, and job op­por­tu­ni­ties. It builds a sol­id net­work of con­nec­tions and ex­pe­ri­ences that will ben­e­fit fu­ture ca­reers. It is es­sen­tial for stu­dents who plan to par­tic­i­pate in pro­grammes that fos­ter com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment through their knowl­edge and skills. Be­ing the first per­son to study lo­cal­ly and at­tain a pro­fes­sion­al con­tract, I was a son of the soil. Be­ing the trail­blaz­er that I am, I built and fos­tered a pro­fes­sion­al re­la­tion­ship with spon­sors, in­clud­ing but not lim­it­ed to bmo­bile, Unilever, Toy­ota, and the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It worked well for cor­po­rate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and my per­son­al growth and brand de­vel­op­ment. Be­ing at home worked out well aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly with these mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial re­la­tion­ships.

There­fore, while study­ing abroad may seem like an ex­cit­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty, there are nu­mer­ous rea­sons why stay­ing and at­tend­ing a lo­cal uni­ver­si­ty is the bet­ter choice. From cost sav­ings and a com­fort­able learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment to com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment and flex­i­bil­i­ty, re­gion­al uni­ver­si­ties of­fer a range of ben­e­fits that can help achieve aca­d­e­m­ic, ath­let­ic, and ca­reer goals. As such, con­sid­er stay­ing lo­cal­ly and in­vest­ing in your com­mu­ni­ty—you won’t re­gret it! Train hard, and study hard, the world is your oys­ter.

Je­hue Gor­don is the track coach at The UWI, St Au­gus­tine cam­pus. He won the 400-me­tre hur­dles ti­tle at both the World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onship in 2010 in New Brunswick, Cana­da and the World Cham­pi­onship in 2013 in Moscow, Rus­sia. Gor­don is the youngest di­rec­tor of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion. He holds the na­tion­al se­nior and ju­nior record in the 400-me­tre hur­dles and has won the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee Sports­man of the Year award and the First Cit­i­zens Foun­da­tion Sports­man of the Year award.