She once sat on the journalists’ bench in court dreaming of being a lawyer. Now, former Stabroek News court reporter, Judith Gildharie– Mursalin has multiple reasons to be happy since she graduated from the Hugh Wooding Law School last week on the Principal’s Honour Roll and was also awarded for being the best performing Guyanese student.
The 39-year-old mother of two, will be admitted to the bar today; her petition to be presented by Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Shalimar Ali-Hack. Mursalin is attached to the DPP’s Chambers.
She hails from Fair Field, Pomeroon River and in an interview with Stabroek News yesterday, recounted her days at law school as being very difficult at times, particularly because she had to leave her children at home to follow her aspirations.
She started her career as a teacher, then a script writer with Primetime Advertising and moved on to become a court reporter with Stabroek News. While she always wanted to become a lawyer, it was her tenure as a court reporter that boosted this aspiration. In 2007, she graduated from the University of Guyana with a Bachelor’s Degree in Law, gaining a Distinction. She then went on to the University of the West Indies to further her career.
Though extremely elated about her performance, a calm Mursalin says being without her children throughout everything was emotionally devastating and at times, when she called home to speak with them she cried but led them to believe it was just a cold.
She along with other Guyanese students attended their graduation ceremony at the Hilton Hotel in Trinidad last weekend. At the end of the last semester she found out that she attained As in all her courses but received no indication that she had won an award. It was not until she left Guyana to return for graduation in Trinidad that she was told that a letter had arrived for her.
But the new graduate only learnt that she was receiving the Guyana Government prize for the best performance by a Guyanese student for the year 2009 as she flipped through the pages of the programme’s students’ profiles and awards to be handed out, and saw her name listed for the prize.
“During my exams I was ill and so when I found out that I got straight A’s I could not stop screaming. I was thrilled and so overwhelmed,” she recounted. Gildharie said that winning the best Guyanese student award was “the most shocking thing.”
She attributed her success to her prayer-filled life and knowledge and wisdom granted by the creator coupled with very supportive family members.
