{"id":9055,"date":"2014-09-29T11:44:34","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T15:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=9055"},"modified":"2014-09-29T11:44:34","modified_gmt":"2014-09-29T15:44:34","slug":"how-i-got-here-abayomi-arowolo-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=9055","title":{"rendered":"How I Got Here: Abayomi Arowolo \u201915"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cBayo,\u201d as friends and family call him, is a defensive lineman for the football team and a leading thrower for the track and field squad. Last spring he placed third at the 2014 outdoor NJAC championships in the hammer throw, helping guide the Lions to the conference championship.<\/em><\/h1>\n

><\/span>\u00a0 My mom and dad are teachers, so I was taught from an early age to \u201cwork first, play later.\u201d That lesson stuck with me.<\/p>\n

\"Abayomi_Arowolo_060FINAL\"
Photo by Matt Furman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

><\/span>\u00a0 My mom always kept me busy when I was younger. During elementary and middle school, I attended academic summer camps. In high school, I spent a lot of time with my church\u2019s youth group. My mother pertinaciously believes that people should always be looking to better themselves. Through the years, I\u2019ve found that what she says always turns out to be right.<\/p>\n

><\/span>\u00a0 My parents teach math, so math, science and technology were emphasized in my household. That\u2019s one factor that led me to major in civil engineering. But in high school, instead of taking Spanish or German to fulfill my language requirement, I took Mandarin Chinese. The course allowed me to branch out and connect with a group of students I otherwise might not have slapped hands with in the hallways. And I still have all my notes from class; I don\u2019t throw away documentation.<\/p>\n

><\/span>\u00a0 Organization is a key part of my life. There\u2019s so much to keep up with as a student-athlete: classes, homework, meetings with professors, practices, games, work. I find the best way to stay on top of everything is using Post-it Notes. Every day, I write
\ndown everything I need to accomplish on individual Post-its, and I have my own methodology for ordering and completing each task. I tried using my iPhone to stay organized, but there\u2019s something about having a hard-copy document.<\/p>\n

><\/span>\u00a0 Track has this organized chaos to it: You have everything going on all at once. Football helps me remember to take everything one day at a time.<\/p>\n

><\/span>\u00a0 There are a lot of ways to describe me, but no singular label defines me. I\u2019m a son, a student, a dual-sport athlete, an aspiring structural\/geotechnical engineer and a Mandarin Chinese enthusiast. Last spring, I was named a \u201cCampus Cutie\u201d by the TCNJ edition of Her Campus. I still can\u2019t believe it. It\u2019s a nomination that I pray will help me meet that special lady, because the math and science pickup lines just aren\u2019t doing the trick.<\/p>\n

\u2014as told to Brandon Gould \u201912<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBayo,\u201d as friends and family call him, is a defensive lineman for the football team and a leading thrower for the track and field squad. Last spring he placed third at the 2014 outdoor NJAC championships in the hammer throw, helping guide the Lions to the conference championship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,16,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2014","category-lions-roar","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}