A healthy dose of academic ambition can inspire a student to attend college. And when their preferred university is in a foreign country, sometimes they are inspired to cross oceans to pursue their dreams. That is the case for two recent graduates of Illinois State University’s Department of Economics.
Both master’s students, Oyinkansola Agunbiade, M.S. ’23, and Jackson Omushien, M.S. ’23, put the natural fears of leaving home aside to come to a place neither had heard of to attend the university of their choice. That determination has paid off with graduate degrees in applied economics from an American university.
Illinois State’s applied economics program is a STEM-designated degree that offers international students Optional Practical Training (OPT) study options. One OPT option allows for temporary employment authorization so that international students can get work experience in jobs directly related to their major.
Agunbiade and Omushien are now serving prestigious graduate fellowships with the Illinois Power Agency (IPA) in Chicago. The IPA is a state agency that plans and manages power purchases for residential and small commercial customers in Illinois. Both students said their time at Illinois State has put them on track for careers in the energy field. Graduate degrees are challenging enough, especially for international students living half a globe away from home.
Agunbiade, 24, had been to the U.S. before to visit relatives in Wisconsin and Texas. She discovered Illinois State while searching online for a graduate economics program. As a native of Lagos, Nigeria, one of the largest cities in the world with a population of more than 20 million people, the size of Bloomington-Normal was a challenge.
“I was under the impression that I was basically going to be in Chicago, but I realized soon that it wasn’t Chicago,” she said. “Normal is a pretty quiet community, but I’m very pleased with this decision. I feel like this is a decision that I will look back on as really good. It was very hard, but I have no regrets.”
Another aspect of living in the Midwest concerned her from the start.
“I was dreading winter and was worried it would be the biggest challenge for me,” she said. “I didn’t like it a bit, and I still don’t like it.”
But cold weather and the size of her new town didn’t dissuade her from attaining her academic goals. And now, thanks to her degree at Illinois State and her IPA experience, she believes she will have career opportunities in her chosen industry.
“I want to remain in the energy field, and I feel like I’m getting an example of what exactly I want to do in that field now at the IPA,” Agunbiade said. “I’m doing research on policy study based on the drafting of legislative bills.”
She likes learning on the job and is enjoying her IPA colleagues and living in Chicago, which has an added benefit.
“Places don’t close so early here, so I can get food at 1 or 2 in the morning,” she joked.
“I feel like this is a decision that I will look back on as really good. It was very hard, but I have no regrets.”
Oyinkansola Agunbiade
Omushien, 30, is from Kenya and grew up near the capital city of Nairobi. He developed a passion for languages in college that can be traced to learning English and Swahili, both of which he’s fluent in, in the Kenyan educational system beginning in kindergarten. He also speaks some Korean, but his first language was Luhya.
“Luhya is my tribal language and the language I learned at home from my parents,” he said.
He arrived in Normal in the fall of 2021 after being admitted to all three U.S. universities that he applied to, including Illinois State. When he was looking at American colleges, he used an agency in Kenya that recommended he consider Illinois State. He made his choice based on academics, affordability, and location.
“ISU didn’t seem to be too expensive, and it was a good location with it being so close to Chicago, which is known all over the world,” Omushien said. “Plus, there’s a lot of corn here, which we call maize, which felt like home because we also have a lot of corn in Kenya. Looking out the window on the plane I felt like I was flying to my hometown, Kitale.”
Being near Chicago is significant because it’s allowed him to travel back home.
“It’s two hours to Chicago, where I can catch an 8-hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany, and then it’s a 9-hour flight to Nairobi,” he said.
At the IPA, he’s been researching public policy. He’s been immersed specifically in the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), which was passed into law in 2021. The work has focused his interest on how the state transitions from fossil fuels to renewable energy and its impact on lower-income families.
“I’ve learned that new policy should be equitable because it affects all people,” he said.
Agunbiade and Omushien credited Dr. David Loomis, recently retired economics professor at Illinois State, as crucial to their academic experience and to their opportunity at the IPA.
“He was really influential, a great educator, and he was just completely great,” Agunbiade said.
“Loomis was instrumental in opening my eyes to the energy field,” Omushien said. “Aside from being my professor, he also gave me the confidence that I could build a career.”
Agunbiade said her American experience at Illinois State helped her learn about herself and grow as a person.
“I was forced to come out of my shell and actually become an adult,” she said. “This experience has done good things for me.”
Omushien recently married Molly, an American woman from the Chicago suburbs whom he met here at Illinois State. So, his time here has also been well spent.
“There is much that has happened to me since I stepped my foot in the United States,” he said.
