Chikanma Okoisor '25 Recruiting Profile

As the youngest of two girls, I was the shadow: I had the same aspiration (medicine), and extracurriculars and embodied all her world-views. As she reached her teenage years, our relationship declined; inevitably, I lost my identity that summer.

I began preparing for the World School Games in the summer of 2019, exactly as my sister had. I trained as a sprinter and a breaststroker like her. One afternoon, a stretching routine appeared on my recommendations. I was chubby and wanted to look like her, so I tried it. The debilitating but endorphin-releasing pain inspired me to attempt a flexibility and workout program, increasing my flexibility, fitness, and fortitude/assertiveness. I lost weight, improved my stamina, and became a distance runner and backstroker: My unique persona evolved.

In 2020, as quarantine washed under her waves, I decided to learn how to code. My friend introduced me to HTML: The son. The opening tags embraced me with ecstasy, and the closing tags gave me a warm goodbye as I learned about his sister, CSS, where my ideas came to life with fonts, colors, and animations. I was inspired to create an unpublished website to help people with anxiety. After I met their more delicate parents, Python: Endless possibilities alongside C++: fueled my engineering pursuits.

2022 was an enriching year: I created a flexible YouTube channel, defeated the plague of an eating disorder, did research that could potentially save my country, and built a mutual relationship with my sister. I am an independent roboticist, burgeoned athlete, and self-taught contortionist.