Empowered by Confidence

Northampton Community College (NCC) graduate, Morotiola Babajide, talks a lot about lacking confidence. But her NCC experience proves that she may be too reluctant to give herself credit.

After spending 10 years living in the U.K., Babajide left her family behind to move back to the U.S. to attend college, a decision that required a great deal of self-confidence. She discovered NCC thanks to an uncle who recommended the local community college as a cost effective option to continue her education.

The beginning was difficult for Babajide. “It felt lonely at times,” she says. “But there were a lot of resources on campus, and organizations like the Black Student Union that really helped me. My professors were great at making me feel supported, which is something I’m not sure I’ll find at a four-year university.”

Being a member of the Black Student Union and the Psychology Club helped Babajide grow. Those groups provided a welcoming community and helped her find the courage to step outside of her comfort zone to try new things like networking and initiating conversations with others.

Receiving the Daniell Hoffman Scholarship and the Louise Moore Pine Scholarship encouraged Babajide, already an outstanding student, to excel even more. “[The scholarships] showed me that people do see something in me, so I was definitely more motivated to learn,” she says. “I wanted to make use of my education and get good grades and keep learning new things about myself.”

She did just that, graduating this past May with an associate degree in applied psychology with honors and a perfect 4.0 GPA. She also received All-Pennsylvania Academic Team honors, was named a Coca-Cola Academic Team Bronze Scholar, and received the Hites Family Foundation Higher Education Endowment Scholarship.

Despite the excellence and accolades, Babajide remains humble, acknowledging that she still struggles with her confidence. Those challenges are the inspiration behind the blog she began last year called Inner Strength, a platform she uses to tie psychology research to mental health issues, particularly those surrounding body image.

In one of her latest posts, she discusses a 19th-century study of the psychology of human perception using the golden ratio, an ancient mathematical concept often associated with the idea of perfect beauty. For example, she writes, social media filtering tools may create the appearance of perfection but actually make us “less human.” She also shares her original poem The Golden Ratio, which she presented at the Northeast Regional Honors Conference held in Albany, N.Y., this past spring.

“The golden ratio of pretense, features polished and erased; This endless pursuit, release of me, an Ideal Age, full of penitence,” she writes. “The golden ratio of humans, a standard we can’t obtain; Release of me, this endless pursuit, of idealism that bring us pain.”

Babajide, who is currently majoring in psychology at Penn State-University Park, recalls struggling throughout her childhood with her confidence. Not realizing that others also faced similar challenges, she often grappled with those issues alone. Her blog is a first step to providing others with the support she wishes she had growing up.

“I want to help others find their strength, some type of confidence,” she says. “I want to be a resource for them.” Babajide is quick to credit NCC with helping her grow her confidence: “Without NCC, I wouldn’t be as confident as I am today.”

Perhaps, NCC simply brought to the surface what was there all along.