Zumunta Machunga-Disu had never
heard of Drexel University in Philadelphia till her sister encouraged her to
check out the university for her bachelor's degree. “I am originally from Nigeria. My decision to come to the United States was basically to go to
college,” she says.
"I'm currently at Drexel University in Philadelphia. My
sister actually recommended it to me.
She went to Temple University which is in Philadelphia as well and she
is an Engineer and I think she had heard that Drexel program is quite good, so
she told me to check it out and that is pretty much how I came to Drexel,” she
says. “Beyond that I had never heard of
it. So it was a good accident I suppose.”
Business Administration with a concentration
in Entrepreneurship is Zumunta's major.
Now that she has been there for five years, Zumunta says there isn't
another university she would ever consider going to. “I’ve been to Drexel for
five years and it has been very good.
It has been different each year which I suppose keeps it interesting,”
she says.
“You start off in the dorms as a
freshman and so I had the campus experience and then I moved off the campus and
academically it has all been different every year. We have a co-op program so it is not as traditional as other
schools with the four-year program, but my experience at Drexel has been quite
diverse and I had the opportunity to go to different schools, but after five
years I can’t see myself having gone to any other university,” she says. “I think that is what I enjoy most
about Drexel. It is never the
same. Never a dull moment, because who I am today, I know it
is particularly because of my experiences at Drexel.”
Zumunta has a partial scholarship
through Drexel and she works part-time on campus.
Most of the activities she is involved are business oriented
activities. “I’m involved in the Drexel University gospel choir. I work on campus student union operations as
a building manager, it is student oriented. We have the Biaiada Center for Entrepreneurship and so as a Entrepreneurship major this being
something I want to pursue in my life and do, I participate in a lot of the
workshops they have and anything that any of the seminars that
LeBow College of Business host and
I did play intramurals and volleyball when I started out but you tend to have
to focus on school a little bit more.
For Zumunta, she says the
importance of being in the United States is more for her than just education.
“I think it is your mind set more than people realize. Most people want to stay where they
are. They get comfortable with the way
things work. They say this is how life
is.
Whereas when you come to the states or wherever else you go if it is for school or for work, you see that life can be a lot different from what you are use to and so it sort of changes the way you approach your life, you choose to go back home or you see there are different ways of doing the things you might do one way and so I think living here and coming to school here, it certainly changed the way I think more than anything else,” she says.
“I can go home and I notice you
don’t think the same way and not necessarily just because you are in school and
you are learning more and I am more business oriented, but also because things
work differently so you learn different skills just out of living in a
different environment and so I think that is the biggest benefit or effect of
living overseas or going to school in a different country."
Graduation for Zumunta comes a bit early than her class peers. When that happens, she wants to explore doing a few things outside of her business background before going into the workforce full time. “Being that I am graduating a little bit early, I’m graduating in March 2009, I sort of took a lot of classes and so I am graduating a little bit earlier than my class,” she says.
“I think I want to spend that time considering trying to do a project with Engineers Without Borders I have been looking at that for a bit or something outside of my business environment because when you are in school or when you’re in that college environment, its school and the next step is career, yes job hunting and I am doing that now hopefully by the time late March I will have a job secured hopefully despite the market I’ll know exactly where I want to go come June when the rest of my graduating class graduated, but I think I want to do something outside of my customary business school schedule.”
