Conversations with other students about the projects they were working on motivated Jimoh to actually ask himself whether science was his passion. Slowly he began to realize that he was more academically intrigued by engineering. 

“I’m better off doing what I’m good at rather than something people expect me to do,” he says.

Constant exposure to fresh views pushed Jimoh toward the emerging field of photonics engineering, which studies the physical science of lightwaves. As an undergraduate, developing technical knowledge in a new discipline required a lot of self-motivation, late nights leisure reading, and a supportive professor who took him under his wing.

Pursuing the unconventional was not an easy choice but his decision to pursue a field outside of medicine paid off as he is currently a PhD student at Princeton University. Jimoh was brave enough to put himself out there and he was met with encouragement to do so while at NYUAD. “You can email a professor and say, ‘I want to work with you’ and they say, ‘Sure, come see me.’ It’s not like that everywhere. People in other schools struggle to get into labs.”

Beyond technical knowledge, Jimoh says one of the most important skills he picked up at NYUAD was learning to communicate effectively among people with different beliefs, backgrounds and abilities. As a young researcher, he uses this skill every day, explaining highly technical concepts in simple terms for grant proposals and presentations.

Looking back, this makes every day conversations with peers in the dining hall seem even more meaningful. “At NYUAD you meet a lot of people from different parts of the world. Learning to interact is an important skill.”