LARIS a land of milk and honey....or not?

LARIS U.I is said to be one of the best library schools in this part of the country. They boast this and that but frankly, does it live up to expectations? When you get to U.I LARIS, you hope to have the best rides of your life and of course you’ll have it! If the archaic ways of passing information does not wound you one way or another, the entire process and organisation will strangle you. There’s nothing fun happy exciting or interesting about this department. Perhaps, the people you meet are the ones already frustrated.

When you get into U.I LARIS, you have to arm yourself with prayers and holy water to save you and save you and save you. You will be made to doubt yourself, get frustrated, give up, give down, obsess about all the lectures and lecturers and have tortured dreams like literally. LARIS is suspected to be borne out of a Ted Dekker novel - think of all the terrible things that can happen to you and it will happen.

The frustrating thing about PG in this department is that you almost never win. The struggle is real. Your time is wasted. You repeat a simple course 1 or more times. You are treated like a delusional child. Nobody cares. Communication is very poor. They give little or no notice for important events beneficial to the students, yet they claim to be "information professionals". Their only means of getting through to students is their ancient notice boards.

You cannot send anything over email even if you’re a thousand miles away. You must make your way down to see a supervisor who doesn’t want to see you. One who will decide the sight of you is appalling (get what I mean now about needing a higher power). Your time is measured by how smart, how diplomatic and how political you can play the politics. You strive and study and pray and they tell you this is UI! I understand more about earning stripes but does it have to feel like war?

Like that’s not enough. The game of thrones between the lecturers is hard to stomach. They judge one another and silently (sometimes openly) battle themselves. Like that’s not enough, it affects the students who are the grass in this feat of elephant and lion fighting for supremacy. If your supervisor is one of the anointed ones, the other lecturers dare not criticize your work, else they and the student(s) are done for. However, if you’re supervised by one who is not in their good books, be certain, you will be skinned alive by the demi-gods in the department. You might even be asked to start your project all over again, despite getting topic approval, having a pre-field, and having one their own as your supervisor. At the defence of your post-field is when the nut in their brains would remind them about how awful your topic sounds.

A ton of students break down...literally mentally cracked and can’t bear it anymore. It’s like vampirism...dead and yet still alive. You have supervisors who don’t give a Bleep. You literally supervise yourself. They are too busy. Too overworked. Too this and that, and you wonder what is the point? We are the best they say...yet they pile you with unnecessary courses that resemble one another. The thought of anyone having a smooth sailing stay in that jinxed dept is far-fetched. If you fall and die; have an accident, perhaps...they don’t know you, they don’t care. U.I. LARIS is the only department I know that pastes results of 1st semester in the third semester, and of course its your fault not to know you should’ve registered for a course you failed in the subsequent semesters. They replace pasting of results by pasting matric numbers of those they feel should fail respective courses. The matric numbers are often inaccurate. However, this issue has been rectified by the latest HOD, Prof. S.O. Popoola, who is one of the demi-gods I talked about earlier. No one encourages you, after all, it is adult education. You’re big girls and boys and can handle all the mind games and bad omens.

Trust me there are good people. Great folks in fact but they are so so very few...they get overwhelmed by the bad people who don't care that they are bad...who don’t care if you break down and die or get run down by a bus while rushing down to see them...I bet they still make sure your ghost gets there so they can tell it that you have missed your deadline or they don’t feel like seeing anyone anymore. Most times, you travel all the way to see them, only to be told they are not even in Ibadan! No apologies. After all, it’s a fulltime and you should get a mat and sleep by their doors all day and night long.

gods or not?
Yoruba people say...because we want to eat meat, do we call the cow uncle? That is the case in LARIS. They forget there’s a world outside U.I and you don’t know who God will use to help your destiny. They are so self absorbed and self consumed. They don't want you to reach their status. They don’t hide it. They make it clear. You do a course and 80% of the class fail woefully. They tell you the students are not smart enough...oh really? They forget that examination is not only a test for the students, but also for the lecturers – That's if they know this principle, perhaps...

They make sure you feel the frustration in your bones. No one cares if you had a baby yesterday. They tell you...what were you doing when your mates were making choices. They say..."U.I did not come and beg you in your home to come to U.I". I liken the lecturers to LASTMA in Lagos. They have no human feelings. Not an iota of kindness and they forget...that God sees all and it does not end in LARIS.

They are like demons hanging around your neck. They want to drive you crazy. They are like a tempest rain...wild and unforgiving...painful and harsh...like demons they wait for u to break and die. They want us all dead. They want us all to give up and leave so they can boast of how golden their certificate is and in truth it feels like asking the devil for a favor and you use everything you have got to repay it till you bleed dry and die. I see all of them like characters in Game of Thrones. All want their power to last forever, yet, we are the commoners in kingslanding. We suffer at the hands of the lords and there's injustice in the land – cc. Dr. Adetimirin.

It will take more than a broken fellow to fix the horrible acts they do really.

This is LARIS. Department of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of Ibadan.

Kindly push to frontpage. cc Richiez, Fynestboi, olawalebabs

Wow! This is a masterpiece. I didn't attend U.I LARIS but your write-up confirmed everything I have heard about the department. By the way, I like your writing style

Thanks

Hmmn

The OP know quite much about UI LARIS dept. I won't lie, the dept is bleeped up.
This post need broad coverage, the moderators should push it to front-page pls

I think all this about LARIS UI is all but fake, I studied in the same department and graduated almost a decade ago. And all the lecturers were friendly. Unless things have changed. Never had any reason for lecturers to threaten you.

This is soo tue