Adeoye Thomas Adesoye, a first-generation graduate from Iwo, Osun State, finished Physics at the University of Ibadan with a CGPA of 3.97/4.00. He was the best final-year student and best graduating student in the Department of Physics, and overall best graduating student in the Faculty of Science in the 2024/2025 session. Beyond his academic achievements, he is a recipent of several scholarship awards. Here he speaks with IndyPress Correspondent Gbyesola Samuel about a background, the stories behind his achievements and his future aspirations.

Please introduce yourself and tell us about your background, where you grew up and the experiences that shaped you.

Thank you. I consider the invitation an honor. I am Thomas Adeoye, a physics graduate of the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Ibadan. I finished with a CGPA of 3.97 out of 4.00, as the best final-year student and best graduating student of the Department of Physics, and the best graduating student of the Faculty of Science. From what we know, which is not yet officially confirmed, I am also the overall joint best graduating student out of 6,025 graduating students in the 2024/2025 academic session.

I come from Iwo in Osun State, where public schools face serious challenges, one of them being a lack of relevant teachers. Because of that, many young people in my hometown stop after secondary school, and many who go further settle for less competitive schools. I am the first graduate in my family. My parents did not go beyond secondary school, and none of my siblings made it to university. I was the only one privileged to push beyond that boundary.

My long-term goal is to build research capacity in Africa, not just Nigeria, and to train young Africans to use science to solve African problems. My research interest is using computers and the principles of physics to study and discover new materials.

What was your relationship with science and mathematics growing up? Was physics always your subject?

No, it developed later. As I said, secondary schools in my hometown lack relevant teachers. I attended Local Authority Commercial Grammar School, and the name alone tells you something about the school. In SS1 we had a corps member for physics in the second term, but she was not teaching us for long. She left, and for the rest of SS1 we had no physics teacher.

In the second semester of SS2, another corps member was posted to the school, Corper Andrew Adeboye Adesanya. We call him Corper Andrew. God used this man for me. In our very first class, he went to the board and started proving things. I had never seen proving before. I did not know you could actually prove that one thing equals another. I was captivated, and I decided I had to talk to him.

After class, I asked him for private lessons. He agreed, but said that while he would not collect money, I should bring something, maybe snacks, to encourage him. I had no money, and I was discouraged. I went anyway. It turned out he was the one feeding me. He would buy food for me when I came for lessons. Eventually I moved out of my parents’ house and stayed at his lodge.

That was the turning point. Nobody would have expected someone from that kind of secondary school to be admitted into the University of Ibadan. He was the first person to introduce me to physics and mathematics, the two subjects he taught me. I was bigger on physics because we did more of it.

Is that what led you to choose Physics at the University of Ibadan?

No. I became interested in the subjects because of him, but when it was time to choose a course, I did not choose physics. I wanted Computer Science. I scored 276 in JAMB, through mostly self-study. We had no standard tutorial centres in my hometown like the big ones you find in Ibadan.

For the UI Post-UTME, I prepared with New School Physics, which was not the right material, and I did not have the right past questions. I read like crazy because I really wanted to enter UI, but I did not have the right exposure. My aggregate was 64, and the cut-off for Computer Science that year was 65, so I was one point short.

I was angry and wanted to retake JAMB. My pastor told me to take the admission and cross over to Computer Science in my second year. I started with that mindset. Along the way, I learned about computational physics, the aspect of physics that involves scientific computing. That connected with my interest in using computers and physics to discover materials. I decided the course was worth studying. I had also avoided physics because of the notion that you end up as a physics teacher, which is not true. I decided to stay, and I never made that switch.

What were your expectations of university life, and how did they differ from reality?

I thought I was good, because I had been reading and reading. But when I arrived, I felt intimidated. I was taking general courses alongside students from Technology, Electrical Engineering, Pharmacy and Medicine, and I wondered how I would fit in. I wanted to give up.

Then I decided to learn from others. There were things I did not know that these people knew, and I could not compete with them, so I chose to learn from them instead. My aim was simply to do well in all my courses.

You graduated with a CGPA of 3.97. When did you start taking academics seriously, and did you enter university aiming to graduate at the top?

I was already serious before I entered. My church values academic excellence, and my pastor is big on it. You cannot sit under that continuously without it sinking in. I also developed a reading culture at home, because I had to train myself to read. There was not much help.

But in first year, I did not have it in mind that I would graduate as the best. I was scared of how good the others were. What I decided was to aim for good grades. By the end of first year, I wanted to have the best year. I also know there are factors beyond your control, and I was not the only one who finished first year with 4.0. So I did not set out to be the best graduating student.

Was there a semester, course or experience that tested you more than others?

Not just one. In my first semester, the course that troubled me was MAT 121, calculus and trigonometry. I found its rigor hard to cope with. What I did was lean on other people. Someone once said that if you stand tall, it is because you are sitting on the shoulders of giants. I found coursemates who found it easier and reached out to them.

People know me as the one who always drops questions in the group chat. I would post questions, and someone would solve them. I created a WhatsApp group for myself where I copied the questions and the solutions. After reading, I would practice the question on my own and compare my work with what others had written. I asked seniors and coursemates, and I did not care who.

MAT 141 was similar. I thought it would be easy, but I started reading early, during the holiday, and I could not solve some of the questions. Others were solving them in the group, so I reached out again. I told myself we don’t fail this course. In the end, I scored 97, the highest in an inter-faculty class of more than 300 students. No one would have believed it, given how much it terrified me at first.

Was it fear of failure that drove the extra effort?

I would not say fear of failure. I would say the love of doing well. I love the way I feel when I put in my very best and it pays off. What I have noticed is that when I find a course challenging, I tend to do very well. In 200 level, I scored 97 in two more courses that terrified me. The more challenging a course looks, the more extra miles I go.

What does that extra mile look like? Physics is one of the most demanding departments in the Faculty of Science.

First, I ask questions. I have seniors who have walked this path, so I reach out: I am finding this course challenging, you did well in it, how did you do it? Which textbooks did you use? Seniors can tell you something about a lecturer, and if you follow their advice, you often find it golden.

Second, I spend more time on the course. If it is challenging, I give it more time. I tell myself we cannot afford to fail it. Instead of letting fear overwhelm me, I use it.

Were you ever disappointed with your academic performance, and how did you get past it?

My first B was in second year, in CSC 231, Scientific Programming, where we were taught MATLAB. I was not disappointed, because I knew I deserved it. I had never coded before, and I complained: why are you teaching us this, I am not a Computer Science student? Instead of doing what I usually do with a hard course, I just complained. Only a few weeks before the exam did I decide to try to pass, and by then I had wasted too much time.

The other time was a test where I scored 28 out of 40. My seniors had told me that to do well in a course, you must score above 30 in the test, so I was working with that mentality. When I told someone, they said 28 is a high score. But that was my first test score below 30, and I was upset.

Were you involved in extracurricular activities, or was it just books?

It was not just books. I was on the General Executive Council of my fellowship from first year. In first year I was fresher’s coordinator, and I also served in Nnamdi Azikiwe Hall. In third year I became academic coordinator of the fellowship and assistant technical unit coordinator. In final year I continued as academic coordinator and became technical unit head. In CACSA we did a lot besides faith-based activities. It was a big part of my social life. Those people are my family.

I did not do sports, and I was not into business, even though people advised me to try it. I knew there was a gap when I entered. Some people arrive at UI with a solid background: some already have a degree, an HND or an OND, or have done A-levels. So apart from the fellowship, I put most of my time into academics.

Do you think extracurricular activities are a distraction, or was it personal preference?

It depends. Some people can do both without any effect, based on their background. The current president of my department, my junior, is a good example. He loves sports and still does very well, because he came from a very standard private secondary school and had the foundation already.

The key is to know yourself. I tried not to copy anyone. I knew where I was coming from, and I knew getting in was a privilege. I was the only one of my secondary school mates who made it to the best university in Nigeria, not because the others did not want to, but because of the kind of education we had. So I knew it was not the time for sports. Not because sports are bad, but because we do not all start from the same point. For someone like me, who needed to go extra miles, combining both would not have worked.

Looking back, is there anything you would do differently?

I would get involved in politics. We often criticize people in leadership positions and say they should have done this or that. But I believe people who think they can do better should get involved instead of sitting back. Some leadership positions were open to me, and people urged me to go for them. I believe I would have won, but I chose not to. The person who took the office did well, but there were things I felt we could have done differently, and I never had the chance to tell them. When I think about it, I don’t feel good that I did not at least try to make a change.

What do students often misunderstand about academic excellence, especially in a demanding course like Physics?

The belief that only some set of people can do well. As a tutor and academic mentor, I have interacted with many students, and I have seen that some do not believe in themselves. One student told me he could not pass a particular course because it was hard. He did not pass it. I asked him, but some people will pass it, and he said, that is just for them. People even tell me that 90s and 80s are for people like me, which is not true.

I did not enter UI full of knowledge. I knew where I was coming from, and I still achieved great things. Excellence is not meant for only some people.

Briefly, what was your undergraduate project, and why does it matter to society?

The project was “Superconductivity in B2F2 using machine learning and density functional theory (DFT).” For listeners without a physics background: I used computers and the principles of physics to search for new superconducting materials. A superconductor conducts electricity with zero resistance, so there is no power loss.

At home we use normal conductors. If you leave a charger plugged in and touch it later, it is hot. That heat is wasted energy. A superconductor would not heat up, which is why these materials matter for lossless power transmission.

They are also used in the superconducting magnets in MRI machines. MRI machines are very expensive to maintain because the magnets must be cooled to very low temperatures. Not many Nigerian hospitals can afford one. If we could find superconductors that work at room temperature, the cost would fall and more hospitals could have access.

This is personal for me. Someone close to me died because the hospital’s MRI machine was faulty, and the person had to be transported to another city. Current superconductors work only at very low temperatures, so people are searching for ones that work at higher temperatures. No one has found one yet, but in my project I identified a superconducting material, B2F2. If you search for it online, you will not find it, because it has not been synthesized. I did the computational work, so an experimentalist would have to go to the lab and synthesize it for it to exist.

What is next after your undergraduate studies?

I am currently serving at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA). I have started applying to graduate schools abroad, for a Master’s degree and then a PhD in computational materials science.

Finally, a question I like to ask everyone I interview, and it is a retrospective one: what is the one question about your journey you wish people would ask, but don’t?

I think it would be where I was coming from. Many people only see my results and what I have been able to achieve. They do not know that I came from a place where achieving what I have been privileged to achieve seemed almost impossible.

People see me and say, “This guy is a genius,” and I smile. The reason I smile is that I think back and remember where I was coming from.

Thank you very much for your time.
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