Seyi Gbadegesin

Seyi Gbadegesin, pronounced (Shay Bad-aa-gesh-in), has lived on three continents—Africa, Europe and North America. His pilgrimage to becoming a U.S. citizen was born in a fight against ignorance.

Naturalization is a stupid long process filled with ignorance,” Seyi said. A 6’2” rising senior at C.E. Jordan High School, Seyi was born in Nigeria, and later moved to England. From there he began his journey to the United States. Seyi, 16, currently lives in Durham, N.C. with his parents and sister, Simi.

“I would like to follow in my parents footsteps and go to medical school,” said Seyi.

Seyi, a member of his high school track team, excels in the 400, 200 and 100-meter events. As well as being a leader in the classroom, Seyi also takes his leadership role to the track.

“If I see one of my teammates struggling, I’ll be out there to help them,” Seyi said. He acquired the leadership role while driving to push through ignorance. Seyi has several teammates on the track team who at times give less than their all.

“Helping out my teammates makes me more humble,” said Seyi.

Their vibe brings the team’s confidence down, and their lack of participation results in the team losing a race. Seyi is still determined to succeed by reaching out to all of his teammates.

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world and failure is what I fear the most,” Seyi said. The fear of failure drives Seyi to achieve success in all aspects of his life. Seyi’s proudest accomplishment was when he achieved his goal of leading his RoboCup Junior team to nationals in China.

“It was one of the best feelings to represent the United States,” Seyi said. His team competed against China in building robots that were designed to complete certain tasks that humans lack the ability to accomplish.

The robots took five days to assemble. After that, multiple days of adjustments and finishing touches were needed before the competition.

“The robot competitions were centered around speed and accuracy. Robots had to be manipulated through mazes to rescue people from hypothetical catastrophes,” Seyi said.

“Shanghai was the New York City of China,” Seyi said, “Since I was so tall, everyone there thought I was a basketball player.” His trip to China added to his continental adventures, now totaling four. Seyi hopes to visit Australia in the future.

“If I could visit anywhere in the world, it would be Australia,” Seyi said. Since he has already explored many other places, he hopes to go to Australia and visit one of the famous Opera Houses as well as the magnificent Great Barrier Reef. These diverse travels help shape Seyi’s life goals.