Olubusayo Awomolo was the kind of graduate student who would quickly finish his projects, hand in reports early and ace exams.

But after he finished his own work, he would take a moment to offer help to other students, said his classmates and professors at the University of Illinois at Chicago today.

A week after the 21-year-old mechanical engineering student was fatally shot outside his house in south suburban Dolton, the Nigerian immigrant's friends, professors and school administrators gathered with his family to mourn. Awomolo was a master's degree candidate scheduled to graduate this month, officials said.

In a short life, he touched so many people," said Peter Nelson, dean of engineering. "We cannot understand this senseless loss. , We keep asking ourselves, 'Why? Why? Why?'"

According to Dolton police, Awomolo was shot between 7 and 8 p.m. Nov. 29 in the 15500 block of Ingleside Avenue, near the driveway of his house. Although several of his neighbors heard the shots, no one called police, said police Chief Bolden Jones. Police and Awomolo's family have asked the public to come forward and help authorities find who is responsible for the shooting. No one is in custody.

On Monday, Awomolo's classmates and professors used the ceremony to tell his family how much he meant to the university. Awomolo was one of five siblings who attended UIC, and three have graduated from there, school officials said.

With Awomolo's parents and siblings in the front row, the students and teachers described him as a humble scholar whose projects sometimes corrected flaws in his classmates' and professors' work.

They vowed to carry on his research and to promote his legacy of quiet academic excellence with a scholarship. Awomolo was concentrating his research on projects that could eventually help reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil, Nelson said.

On the night he was killed, Awomolo was returning home from his class on numerical heat transfer.

Farzad Mashayek, head of the mechanical and industrial engineering department who taught the course, said he was likely one of the last people to see Awomolo before he died. Awomolo was supposed to present his final paper two days later, but that day he handed it in early.

"We lost one of our most promising students," Mashayek said.

Khurram Akber, a student who took classes with Awomolo, said that even after he heard the news, he couldn't believe it.

"I was sitting in the lab all day hoping he would walk by and say, 'How are you?'" he said. "Olu was a great person."

After the service, Awomolo's parents said they were moved to learn their shy, modest and studious son had touched so many lives. The boy's mother, Olufunmilayo Awomolo, said she knew her son was bright, and now she knows others knew it too.

"We should live his legacy," she said. "We cannot just turn around."

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/12/uic-mourns-for-grad-student-slain-in-dolton.html

I am sorry, I shouldn't be doing this, but I just can't believe he is gone, I so want him to come back.

Remembering bawolomo today after a year u left Us

RIP my black brother,

Love U but God loves u more