The year is 2018, and I had no direction in my life. I was at a job with terrible pay, working night shifts. This was honestly one of the most annoying periods of my life. I graduated from the Vieux-Fort Comprehensive School (A-Level) with average, at best, grades in all subjects other than Information Technology, which I received the award for. A while after graduating, I got a job as an Artificial Intelligence Trainer which is where I remained until I went to university. I hated it. I felt like there was nowhere for me to go after this. Going to work at 11 pm and returning home at 8 am was terrible. But at the end of the day, I wasn’t in dire financial situations because of it.

At the beginning of 2018, my father messaged me with some words that would change my life. He said, “Check what program you’d like to do at UWI in Trinidad”. Honestly, I was quite surprised. I didn’t think he believed in me to that degree at this point. I didn’t think I’d done anything to garner this kind of belief from him (I’ll give a joke about this in part 2).

So now I’m at the point of selecting what program I would pursue. I had no idea what I was good at but I figured I might as well do something computer related. My first choice was Electrical and Computer Engineering. I got rejected for this (blessing in disguise). My second and third choices were Computer Science (with Management) and Land Management. I got accepted to these two. My choice was to pursue a degree in Computer Science.

I left Saint Lucia, on my own, for the first time, on August 24th, 2018. I was nervous as hell. I had no idea what to expect. At this point, I already had transportation and housing arrangements set. On leaving the airport I was transported to Canada Hall where I was supposed to spend a couple of days as part of UWI’s Check-In program (highly recommended by the way).

My first impressions of the room were okay. They were tiny, but at the same time, they seemed okay. The beds were also crazy hard. Sadly I didn’t bring any pillows so I was forced to put some clothes in a pillowcase to sleep. I honestly didn’t miss home. I’d wanted to get free of all the stresses of home for quite a long time. So I was fairly happy.

The next few days were great. Those of us at the Check-In program were mostly people from the Caribbean region. This was my first time being surrounded by so many nationalities. It was amazing. I met some amazing people there. Most of us became relatively good friends. To this day I still keep in touch with some of them… and I hope this continues til the end, to be honest. I do hope that those I no longer interact with are doing well though.

After Check-In we all went to our respective halls or accommodations. I had chosen to stay at Freedom (Milner) Hall since I thought I’d be more constrained monetarily. I got there and immediately wanted to leave. It got me sick. They had recently painted the interior and I got something similar to bronchitis as a result. Beyond that, the hall amenities were run down, to say the least. I immediately contacted my father to see if he would approve my move and he agreed. I initially wanted to move to Canada Hall but there were no available rooms. So the only other alternative was the Sir Arthur Lewis (SAL) Hall. I relocated within a day of moving into Freedom.

SAL was much quieter than Freedom. Compared to the other halls, the hall spirit was low but, depending on who you ask, that’s a good thing. I was also in the camp and thought it was a good thing. The only real downside of SAL was that it was off campus. This meant taking a campus-provided shuttle to and from campus. These shuttles were reliable for a large part of the time… but at times it was horrendous waiting on them.

At SAL I met some amazing friends which I hope to keep for the rest of my life. These people helped steer me in amazing directions. They helped make me who I am today. We had so many memories together and I hope to meet with them in the coming years to vibe even more.

That’s it for the prelude. A little after moving into SAL, the semester began and that’s, in my opinion, when UWI began. So I think that would be the ideal part to start part 1. Thanks for reading til the end.