Most of the students I meet who feel stuck are capable people who have never had the rules explained to them. Here is how I came to see that.
Growing up in Lagos
I was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, the last of eight children in a family of ten. Lagos is a fast city, and I learned early how to keep up and how to read a room.
At school I was a good student and a quiet one. I was head girl in primary school and assistant senior prefect in secondary school, and I still often felt overlooked next to louder classmates. I know what it feels like to be capable in a room that hasn't noticed you yet, and I keep that student in mind in everything I make.
Starting again in Germany
I moved to Germany for my master's degree, and much of what I knew about studying stopped working. My classmates came from all over the world, and many of them seemed to understand a style of writing and a way of taking part in seminars that nobody had ever taught me.
I had to work out most of those unwritten rules on my own, from how academic writing was supposed to sound to how to speak up in a seminar. It took a long time. What I learned was that the gap between me and the students who seemed to be doing well was a gap in access. Once someone explained the rules, I could follow them as well as anyone.
Learning to teach writing
Today I'm a PhD researcher in agricultural economics at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Research has asked me to write far more than I expected, and along the way I started to treat writing as a skill I could keep improving and one I wanted to teach.
For four years I've worked as a university writing advisor with students in almost every discipline. I've helped with everything from first undergraduate essays to dissertation defences, along with scholarship applications, statements of purpose and conference papers.
I kept meeting the same kind of student. They were bright and hardworking, and they were stuck. The ideas were there, but nobody had shown them how to get those ideas onto the page. The students who broke through had someone who helped them divide the work into pieces small enough to start.
Why I built Simpl-Ify
I founded Simpl-Ify in Halifax in 2026. It's the help I wish I'd had when I arrived in Germany: clear explanations of how graduate school and writing work, in plain words, with sources you can check.
It's for graduate students, applicants and anyone working on their writing. It's also for anyone moving between countries, disciplines or stages of life who wants to keep their own voice along the way.
If any of this sounds familiar, I'm glad you're here. Start wherever feels easiest, and write to me at ify@simpl-ify.com whenever you have a question.
Ify
