We asked one of our training programme’s participants, Ms. Ayyam Fou’ad to tell us about her observations and challenges before she joined the Tech Tribes family, the following is an excerpt of what she wrote us:

I came a long way after after gaining a full scholarship in both university and high school; I earned my first scholarship when I got a high GPA in the 10th grade, which allowed me to move from a public school after studying there for 10 years to a private, better equipped, school. I worked hard to keep this scholarship and I did a very good job at doing so; I achieved the highest GPA at school 99.6%, that in particular placed a high amount of pressure on me, and great expectations were held from both family and school, which led to a hellish senior year, colloquially known as Twajihi in Jordan. This affected me badly, the thought of being judged by a large amount of people whom I’ve had to impress at the end of the year, and the grandiose expectations I wasn’t supposed to fail; I spent more time thinking about my results rather that working to achieve them.

Eventually, I got into the Hashemite University which wasn’t exactly what I hoped for, due to my senior year results I wasn’t accepted at Jordan University (JU). I struggled for four semesters to get at least a GPA of 3.5 in order to be qualified to move to JU, and eventually I did. I was accepted in the university I wanted, studying the major I chose, my hard work in the scorching sun of Zarqa was worth it, at the end of the day.
Since then, I got engaged in many different volunteering activities in the field of civil development, these trainings and participations enriched my personality and took me to a whole new level of self-development, at the same time, I have maintained my university scholarship; I really do think that volunteering doesn’t take your time, it just keeps you busy, besides, who needs free time anyway? Success needs dedication and hard work, and upon all of us there’s a good seed that just needs you to plant it and saturate it with huge amounts of patience, determination and a little bit of creativity.

Your dreams and motivations are worth it. You are worth it and every single detail about you is a blessing. You are responsible of exploring your greatness, not others. It is definitely there, you just have to wipe your glasses and look closer.

-Ayyam Fou’ad