For­mer Hillview Col­lege stu­dent Caitlin Joseph, who won an Open Schol­ar­ship, is at­tribut­ing her suc­cess to her teacher.

She was the on­ly girl among the eight schol­ar­ship win­ners from the school.

“It was pres­sure and hard work, but I nev­er gave up,” she said in a brief in­ter­view at the school yes­ter­day, as their schol­ar­ship win­ners were cel­e­brat­ed.

She added: “Sir con­tin­u­ous­ly gave me sup­port and guid­ance. So, I de­cid­ed that I would not let down my sir and be­gan work­ing to achieve this goal.”

Joseph said there were sev­er­al chal­lenges. She said her first ex­am was Caribbean Stud­ies and “let me tell you, I came out of the ex­am room feel­ing sick.”

Af­ter that ex­am, she said, “I just told my­self you know what, all I can do is my best. But that does not mean I gave up, be­cause let me tell you, giv­ing up and pro­cras­ti­nat­ing, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the most cru­cial time, is not go­ing to get you any­where.

“I told sir I was not go­ing to get a schol­ar­ship. These ex­ams are go­ing ter­ri­bly, but I still work my hard­est and did my best and to­day I am cel­e­brat­ing my goal.”

Joseph told stu­dents of Forms Five and Six that stud­ies would be­come hard and they would nat­u­ral­ly be stressed.

“You are go­ing to have an over­whelm­ing amount of work to cov­er,” she told the stu­dents.

She al­so ad­vised them: “When your emo­tions start to kick in, sit back and take some deep breaths. Al­ways re­mind your­self of your goals. Nev­er sit be­hind the screen play­ing games, which will stress you out even more. In­stead, take a lit­tle walk, talk with your fam­i­ly, spend a few min­utes play­ing your favourite sport, ex­er­cise or even more sim­ple, blast some mu­sic in your room.”

Saif Asif Mo­hammed, an­oth­er schol­ar­ship win­ner, told stu­dents to al­ways keep in mind “the val­ue of your time and try your best not to lose sight of your goals.”

“At the same time, and from my ex­pe­ri­ence, this may sound like a con­tra­dic­tion, en­joy the process. It is still sev­en years of your life. Try to have some fun. Just en­sure you keep a good bal­ance.”

Those re­ceiv­ing schol­ar­ships were Amir Per­sad, Ale­jan­dro Marin, Ter­rell Lewis, An­dre Ben­jamin, Joshua Spencer and Kavi Sookhai.

­­— With re­port­ing by

Ralph Ban­warie