-urges students to manage time well, start ‘side hustles’ to fund academic pursuits

IN 2022, Sheridan Dyal copped the award for the Most Outstanding in Sciences at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations. This year, not only did she emerge as one of the top Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) performers, but has also been dubbed the top matriculant at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona Campus, for the academic year 2024-2025.

The Queen’s College (QC) alumna expressed how proud she felt of not only herself, but of the people around her who would have contributed to her success by motivating, pushing and guiding her throughout her journey. She identified her mom, family, friends, and teachers as being the driving forces behind her success.

Sheridan related that it is a very proud moment to know that she has gotten thus far, with much more to accomplish in life.

During her time at Queen’s College, Sheridan completed a total of 40 Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) exams.

At UWI, Sheridan is pursuing the Doctor of Dental Surgery programme.

She recently told this publication, “Dentistry is just a stepping stone as to where I would like to be. The end goal per se, in terms of my academic pursuits would be for an oral and maxillofacial degree, and dentistry would be that bridge between the two. Aside from that, I still want to maintain my businesses, grow my businesses, and open more businesses, all while doing all of this. Yes, I know that would be a challenge. It’s already proving a challenge right now because I’m so busy at UWI at the moment, but I’m trying my best to juggle both worlds.”

She related: “Initially, it was going to be medicine, but given that I own two businesses already and I have had the opportunity to work in the private sector, I realised that what I want for myself is to be able to be my own boss eventually.”
Outside of academia, Sheridan plays the guitar, swims and is the owner of two businesses: Teen Hustle, and Royal Wigs.

When asked about how she managed to balance work, school and her personal life, she stated: “Time management. It really was something perilous at the time, but when I look back at it, I realise I was really managing my time well, sometimes not so well, closer to exams, because I did still run my businesses throughout my exam period. However, I did have a bit of help from my business partners because I do run shelves, so they would have helped me in terms of the pickup and deliveries, and only would have contacted me when it was absolutely necessary. So that was a big help, but it was a lot of time management, minimum sleep at times, but that was the key.”

She noted as well that while there wasn’t a routine for studying; “Once I knew I finished a particular task pertaining to business or housework, I would jump straight into my books and just sit, take a break, repeat until I knew that I was at my limit then go to bed. So studying was maybe four or five hours per day. Sometimes it would be all day if I didn’t go to school on that particular day.”

She encouraged students to start their own “side hustles,” as without her businesses she would not be at UWI today. Although she is the holder of a scholarship, Sheridan noted that there were many miscellaneous expenses that they incurred trying to simply get her there. Her businesses helped to offset many of her expenses.

“That’s why I would encourage people to take on different ‘side hustles,’ do what you know you can do and make it a lucrative business. Aside from that, in terms of academic inspiration, there is nothing that you cannot conquer once you set your mind to it. If there is a problem that’s bothering you, you could always reach out to somebody else. There is someone who will know how to help you. You just need to know where to go and ask the right people at the end of the day,” Sheridan advised.

Continuing, she said: “There’s nothing that is impossible once you set your mind to it. If man can go to the moon, so can you.”

Sheridan pointed to the many successes she has found in her personal life, in school and by achieving minor goals within her business. This, she noted, helped her to achieve the major ones that she set out to achieve — at least every quarter of the year.

“Success, you have to look at it either from a holistic point of view, or you can look at it in terms of a smaller area. And either way you look at it, I think a win is a win,” she said.