{"id":47151,"date":"2017-10-13T12:10:50","date_gmt":"2017-10-13T16:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=47151"},"modified":"2017-10-26T13:10:54","modified_gmt":"2017-10-26T17:10:54","slug":"twin-sisters-graduate-together-at-fall-convocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2017\/10\/twin-sisters-graduate-together-at-fall-convocation\/","title":{"rendered":"Twin sisters graduate together at Fall Convocation"},"content":{"rendered":"

They were born 10 minutes apart, and they graduated from Brock University seconds apart Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rina Yousif and her twin sister Rita graduated side-by-side with Bachelor of Arts degrees in sociology during the University\u2019s Fall Convocation ceremony.<\/p>\n

For the 22-year-old siblings, walking across the convocation stage was the end of one chapter, but just the next step in their journey together.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since we were little, we were always close. In kindergarten they had to separate us because we were only talking to each other and not making new friends,\u201d said Rita, the \u2018younger\u2019 of the two.<\/p>\n

Born in Iraq, the twins came to Canada with their family as toddlers.<\/p>\n

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Twin sisters Rita and Rina Yousif graduated together Friday.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIn high school we didn\u2019t really have the same classes so we thought it would be fun to go to university together,\u201d Rita said. \u201cGoing to university was kind of scary, so taking all the same classes together, it was nice to have someone there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The twins lived together during their four years at Brock and took most of the same classes at the same time. They intentionally tried to avoid working on assignments or studying together, but that didn\u2019t stop them from regularly getting marks within a few percentage points of each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn second year we had a written, formal exam \u2014 all long answer with no multiple choice \u2014 but we ended up getting the exact same mark,\u201d Rina said, pointing out that it happened again on a fourth-year assignment.<\/p>\n

As life got busier with jobs and boyfriends, they didn\u2019t spend as much time together in the final two years of university, but they were happy to graduate together Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means a lot,\u201d Rina said. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to always have a friendly face, especially with something as important as convocation. We\u2019ve done a lot of the important things in life together.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a big day for the whole Yousif family as the twins\u2019 parents and younger siblings were also on hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the first in our family to graduate university, so it\u2019s a big moment,\u201d Rita said. \u201cWe grew up here, but they didn\u2019t, so they didn\u2019t have this opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair\u2019s father, Laith Yousif, said it was clear from very early on that they were bright girls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were on the honour roll all the way through elementary school,\u201d he said. \u201cWe saw something special in them so we supported them and pushed them to do good things.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Rita and Rina, post-secondary education won\u2019t end at Brock.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve now started applying for law school together and are, once again, hoping to land at the same university.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a deal \u2014 if one of us gets in and the other doesn\u2019t, we\u2019re not going to hold the other one back because it\u2019s not fair,\u201d Rita said. \u201cBut we want to get in together because law school is even scarier.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They were born 10 minutes apart, and they graduated from Brock University seconds apart Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":47152,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119,7,3319,1,4,38],"tags":[156,1536,31,33],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47151"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47488,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47151\/revisions\/47488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}