₦airaland Forum

I wish you all the best, op.

And the real life application video? It covered a large reverse osmosis plant in Israel that was used in converting salt water to drinkable water within few hours. In the video, all the sections of the plant were covered and explained in details. I need not tell you that till today, if you wake me up from sleep around 1am and ask me to explain reverse osmosis to you, I'd gladly do. So if you haven't already, start using YouTube to see the real life application of your course so that you can get to like it.

iii). Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES).
SIWES was founded in.... Its aim is to help students gain.....
Like every initiative does after a period of time, SIWES is beginning to lose its relevance. Nigerian students no longer take it seriously. We'll talk about that another day, for now, let's talk about you alone. If you are finding it difficult to like your course of study and you want this problem ameliorated, I must state it again that getting to know the real life applications of your course is a surefire way to achieve this feat. This is where SIWES, like internship and YouTube comes in.

I will like to mention the common mistakes that are usually made by Nigerian students regarding SIWES which end up depriving them of the benefits of the programme:
A. Going for SIWES solely because of stipends.
B. Not partaking in SIWES.
C. Doing SIWES "anywhere".

You should be very careful not to fall into any of these three if you truly want to get the best out of it.
You should start looking for a place for your SIWES months before the commencement of the programme. This is because it is usually a bit difficult to get a good place. Most of the companies out there would outrightly reject you. Sometimes, in order to get a good place, it might even require that you have a little "connection" that links to the decision makers of those organisations. It's an ugly trend but I have to mention it.

Before your SIWES, you should have identified which of the areas of your course of study interest you the most so that you'll only look for companies in that area and build on it.

Don't make the mistake of picking a place for money sake. In life generally, you have to give preference to long term advantages over instant gratification. If you know this, even if you get a company that requires you to pay them this time for your SIWES with them, you'd gladly do it because you know that the end results would be worth more than anything you are paying. After all you are going there to learn the practical and real life application of your course. Don't forget that you pay to learn the theoretical in school and in my view, they are less valuable than what you will be learning during your SIWES.

This brings to mind a friend, he studied Urban and Regional Planning in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. We lived together in Ekiti. But when it was time for his SIWES, he told me he would have to travel down to Abuja for it. I asked him why and he said he could not find a suitable place around to learn the things he would love to learn. He travelled to Abuja against his comfort, he had to live with a relative. But he learnt. He learnt so greatly that he didn't have to look for job after graduation. He only built upon what he learnt during his SIWES and today, he is an international freelancer and he's doing fine. This is the mindset you should have for your SIWES.

My SIWES programme came towards the end of my days in school. I was determined to get a standard chemical industry where I could learn greatly. In Ekiti where I lived, I knew it would be hard to get any good chemical industries around so I concentrated my search on Ilorin. I got a pharmaceutical industry there. I didn't have any relative in Ilorin. I had to rent an apartment for the period I stayed there. I wasn't even paid any stipend except on one occasion that I got a cash gift of ₦1,000 and a little quantity of rice as end of the year gift. While my friends were in other companies where they were getting paid, I had to pay for accommodation, feeding and transportation on my own. But in the end, it was worth it. I learnt greatly. Before my SIWES, I couldn't even prepare chemical solutions and I would not have been able to if I was not committed to it, we used solutions everyday so I had no excuse. I could use the Pharmacopoeia to prepare samples and analyze them and I did learn about other departments in the industry. It was a remarkable experience. In the end, I got so interested in the pharmaceuticals that I did my project on the "Comparative Analysis of Different Brands of Paracetamol Sold in Anyigba." My project stood out amongst the others. By now, you should have realised that one good way to get to like your course is to familiarise yourself with its real life applications even if you have to pay for it; like I did.
So let's proceed to the second method of liking your course of study.

2. MAKE FRIENDS WITH STUDENTS WHO LIKE THE COURSE.
If you have been following me closely since the beginning of this book, you must have realised that the students in a class can be classified into two broad categories:
i. Those who really like the course and are doing well at it effortlessly.
ii. Those who don't really like the course and are struggling with it.

And we have been talking about the second category where you belong. So one of the good ways of getting to like your course of study is to make friends with people in the first category.
You stand to again a lot by doing this. People do influence people a lot. This means that when you make friends with them, you are always listening to them. You are allowing them to tell you why they really like the course and in the process you too could begin to like it, subconsciously at first and with time your love for it would manifest.

Meanwhile, you would be doing yourself a great disservice if you dislike your course of study and you still choose to make those who are like you your friends. The implication is that all of you would always complain bitterly to one another about your sheer dislike for the course. No one would be there to make things better. In fact, the dislike would rather grow with time.

ATTEND SEMINARS.
Seminars are a great way to gain exposure and be enlightened about your course of study. If you hear about any seminar that relates to your course, don't joke with it. Make sure you get a seat at the front on the that day and pay attention. Make sure you learn from the event.

TALK TO YOUR LECTURERS.
Another great way of getting to like your course of study is talking to your lecturers. Most times, lecturers do not welcome personal students interactions but if you really want to get them to talk to you, there are good ways to achieve that. Some of which are: humility, ....etc.

Talk to different lecturers in your department, tell them you do not like your course of study and seek their advice. They would definitely give you good pieces of advice that can help you. But the most invaluable pieces of advice would be the ones you get from lecturers who were at a time, just like you; they didn't like their field too. Or do you think all the lecturers in a department have always loved their fields? You would be wrong to say yes. Some of them were also admitted for courses they didn't apply. Some others also applied for courses that everyone was applying during their time because, like you, they didn't get adequate orientation. So how did they get to like it afterwards? You would have achieved your aim if any of them bought up this question and answered it.

LOOK UP TO THE PROFESSIONALS IN YOUR FIELD.
Let's assume nursing science would have been the best course for you but here you are studying chemical engineering. So we are looking for a way of getting you to like chemical engineering because you cannot make a U-turn any longer. One good way to achieve that is to look up to those who are already made in your field, the chemical engineers.

Do not make the mistake of keeping nurses as friends. Doing this will only worsen your situation. Instead, go close to the chemical engineers, ask about their professional and work lives. Let them motivate you. Let them tell you to focus on your study. Let them tell you that the reward that awaits you after your graduation is huge. Learn from them, get chemical engineering journals, magazines, videos and other eye-opening pieces from them. In a way, doing this means you are looking up to them and to the reward, and this will definitely go a long way in getting you to like your course.

I hope that these tips would get you to like your course of study and make it yours.

FINAL NOTES

I wish I could stress the importance of this single point - self discovery - enough. It is unarguably the most important part of this book. This is one of the reason it comes ahead of other chapters. Please don't joke with it. If you get it right, then the bulk of the work towards your journey of academic excellence would have been done. And you will find the other steps quite easy.

It is important that you know that those who graduate with sound knowledge of their courses of study and, of course, a bonus of first class do not struggle to understand the basic concepts of their courses in class. They get almost everything the lecturer brings to them in class and they are only concerned about how, where and when to add more.

Additionally, you should know that if you go to the university to study your own course, every session of little work you do will pay off. None of your efforts will be futile. In fact, with the same amount of work, you will have full understanding of your course and graduate with a first class while another person who is studying your own course instead of his would have insufficient knowledge of the course and manage to graduate with second class (lower division). If he works harder than you, he can get an upper division or a first class that is based on knowledge that is not readily available.

At this juncture, I think it is safe to move to the next chapter, goal and determination.

WHO ARE YOU?

I bet this question caught you unaware. You are probably wondering, "why does he care about my persona?" Or you also answered inwardly that you are Abc the son of Xyz. Well, you are quite far from the answer to my question. I was not asking about your name. My question: "who are you?" was raised to gear you towards knowing yourself, your natural abilities and your limitless potentials.

How does this relate to the subject at hand? You see, so many people start failing in school when they have not even written any exams because they failed to ask themselves this question. The journey towards success in any endeavour, academic or non-academic cannot be smooth and will most likely fail* if we fail to examine our capability of scaling through such journey before we embark on it at all.

But a lot students never seem to realise this simple fact. That is why we see people who would naturally do well in biology studying chemistry. And someone who would naturally excel in Mass communication would often be found studying civil engineering.

These ones have failed to discover their natural abilities and God-given talents. Therefore, no matter how hard they try, the quest for exceptional academic excellence would be quite challenging for them. This is why you, my reader, must immediately embark on a journey of self-discovery, if you have not done that already.

THE JOURNEY TOWARDS SELF-DISCOVERY

I would have to reiterate the fact your quest for academic excellence would be easier than every other person's if you identify your abilities and pursue a career in that field.

But there are instances where an individual does not know how to go about discovering himself or finds it difficult to accept his own discovery of himself. If you are in either of these situations, I will show you how to get things right.

Permit me to do these in several categories that I presume my readers might belong:

ADMISSION SEEKER
If it happens that you have just completed your secondary school education and you are preparing to sit for JAMB at the moment, then congratulations. I have just congratulated you because, unlike, majority of the students in the Nigerian Universities, you have not yet made a wrong career choice. So listen to me so that you will not be making one.

Before you choose any course at all, sit down and think. Think about the major subject(s) that is/are associated with your desired course. How easy was it for you to pass these subjects in high school? Were they subjects that you could confidently teach anyone? Do you really like these subjects? If you had to choose one subject and be mandated to study it eight hours per day for five months, would it be this subject? If it passes all of these, then you can go for the course. However, if it does not, you should go for another course which meets these requirements.

Do not ever be fooled into thinking medicine, engineering, law, accounting are the courses you should study because they are said to be lucrative. You will forever regret making such unwise decision.

Every course you study in the university is capable of earning you a good source of living after you have graduated. The only thing that is required of you is to be exceptionally good at it to an extent that the industry cannot do without you. This way, you will not have to look for jobs. Jobs will find you. So do not be pressured into going for popular courses if you know you are not naturally gifted in them. Choose a career path that will make long hours of study seem like a mere recreational exercise to you. You will not regret it.

100 LEVEL STUDENTS
At this stage, chances are that you have already made the wrong choice. You had probably learnt that a career in architecture was highly lucrative and that made you ignored your passionate love for biology. Back then in high school, your biology teacher loved you so much because you were his best student and he would vouch? in you even if was awakened from a deep sleep in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, you were just an average student in Mathematics and Physics and your drawing skills are ridiculously poor. But here you are trying to study architecture. I must tell you this: you have just made the wrong decision. And you must remedy it now. If you you don't, you will later miss biology. You would blame yourself for abandoning it when things start getting difficult for you in architecture.

My advice: Sit down and think deeply. If you had only come to architecture because it was said to hold a fortune and you know truly that you won't be able to give what it takes to excel exceptionally at it, then it's time to make a U-turn. It is time to change your course of study. And you have to do it now before it is too late.

Making a change of course, both inter and intra-faculty is usually easy and hassle-free in 100 level, but it gets tougher as you go higher, so do it now. Go and see your departmental and faculty course advisers. Proceed to the administrative section of your school and make that change now. Study what you love.

200L STUDENTS
Your first year in the university was spent doing general courses. For instance, if you are in the Science field, you would most likely do all of Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Mathematics and Use of English.

So the possibility of not knowing the implication of the wrong choice of your course of study, in 100L, is on the high side. But now that you are in 200L, I am sure the reality is beginning to dawn? on you. If you had made the wrong decision of studying industrial chemistry instead of crop production (Agriculture is highly underrated), you must have started facing the challenges of writing complex chemical equations when the memorisation of only the first 20 elements has always been your worst nightmare.

My advice to you is to find a way of going back to the field of Agriculture that you have always loved. Go there, excel and you would be marvelled by the endless potentials that abound in it. You may find it easy to make a change of course if you have just started first Semester but you have gone far in it or you are in second semester already, changing your course may pose a serious challenge.

The worst that can happen at this stage if you insist on changing your course is having to repeat 200L. I would advise that you proceed with it even if it has to be this. This is because you are making a lifetime decision here. Isn't it better to sacrifice one year for the correction of a problem that may haunt you throughout your entire stay in school and throughout your life (don't forget you are mostly likely to work in your field of study after graduation)?

I think this decision, even though it's hard to make, is nothing but a stitch in time. A word, they say, is enough for the wise.

300L STUDENTS
At this stage, you must have seen far more than what those in the first two categories could see. Your choice of studying Nursing Science instead of an engineering course is telling seriously on your results. Your study sessions feel more like having to drive a nail through a rock using your bare palms. You do not enjoy your classes a bit. You are tired of hearing about your courses. You have lost your motivation to excel.

And when you sit down to reflect sometimes, you remember how your mathematics, further mathematics and physics teachers used to praise you in high school for being their best student. They were so proud of you. They did not even know that you never needed to study those subjects for very long before you beat your co-students, who might even have studied harder, to the top. You know you were not even working as hard as your teachers had presumed. Now you have lost all of that glory because Nursing Science does not mention anything related to Mathematics or Physics to your ear.

You also think of how you could have been making all the students in Engineering hate themselves for performing so woefully in courses you would have been smashing. If you had the chance to advise the younger ones now, you would ask them to go for their talent.

My advice to you is to make a U-turn. If your family can afford to sponsor you if you decide to go back to 200L or to even write another JAMB and start all over again, then do it. Do it and study what you are passionate about.

However, if they cannot afford it, I would advise that you find ways of liking your course of study. I will discuss that later.

FINAL YEAR STUDENTS.
You are graduating already. There's really nothing you can do anymore if you are studying the wrong course except if you decide to start all over which may be very difficult.

My advice to you is to find a way to love what you study.

And this leads us to the next point.

HOW TO LOVE YOUR COURSE OF STUDY

A vast majority of Nigerian students are in the University studying courses they don't like. Abc is studying a course that is naturally Xyz's and Xyz is studying another that is meant for Abc. It is a very pathetic situation. At the end, both Abc and Xyz find their courses to be difficult. They get frustrated and confused. They find their courses unappealing to study. And whenever they eventually study it, they don't get it.

The victims of wrong courses do not seek to perform exceptionally because it is a vain wish but even the average performance that they seek, they don't get it. People whom they really know they outsmart on general terms will pass these courses without stress. They would outshine them because they are on their own track. You are the one who derailed.

These problem is usually caused by two factors:

1. Lack of orientation or societal influence:
When students who have just finished high school are not adequately oriented on why they should pursue a degree in what they love, they get caught in the awe of falsehood. The false trend that has refused to end. The trend that medicine, nursing science, engineering, law, and accounting are the only careers worth pursuing in Nigeria, the remaining ones are useless. As a result of this, a lot of students who are not interested in these courses will end up pursuing them.

2. Parental Influence
The parents too are also not helping in this regard. Majority of the parents dictate to their children what career they should pursue without paying any attention to their strengths and weaknesses. This is even more prevalent amongst the elites who are expected to know better. They want to be able to proudly tell their friends that their first child is an engineer, the second one a doctor, the third one a nurse, another one an accountant and so on.

They, who are supposed to guide their children towards choosing the right career path would end up becoming their tools of misguidance. It is even common nowadays to see parents telling their little kids who can barely hear them that they would become medical doctors in the future. You must seen a scenario where a parent affixes the prefix "Dr." to their children's name right from the age of six. This is nothing but a sheer display of ignorance. It is funny and sickening at the same time.

3. JAMB AND TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS
I do not know who is the major culprit here but both bodies actively play their own roles in changing people's career. It is either they change your desired course from medicine to physics education (smiles) because you didn't meet the cut-off mark or simply because they want it that way. I personally detest and condemn this practice. I think there should be a better way to go about it. A lot of students are failing, getting expelled and/or dropping out of school because of this.

In my opinion, if an admission seeker does not meet the cut-off mark of the course they apply for, the course that should be recommended for them should be closely related to that which they applied. Better still, the students could be contacted before hand and questioned about whether they would be capable of the secondary course before they are considered for admission. They could even be counselled to go and prepare harder and come back the following year.

I know the blame is not entirely JAMB'S or University's because the acceptance of admission is not mandatory upon any aspirant but most of these aspirants cannot be patient enough to try again because of their silly excuse that they have stayed home without admission for too long so they fall into the temptation.


HOW TO LIKE YOUR COURSE OF STUDY
If you fall into the category of students who dislike their courses of study, and there seems to be no possible way of making a U-turn after you must have tried all the means available to you, then it is time to get to accept it as your fate, know more about it and like it unconditionally so that you can excel at it. I believe that it must have been clear to you by now that excelling flawlessly in any course of study always require that you like the course. So I will implore you to pay attention to this section because I will be providing you with tips to liking your course.

1. Immerse yourself in the real life application of your course of study.

You see, many at times, a lot of courses get frustrating for Nigerian students not because they have natural dislike for those courses. In fact, there are students who really like some courses and applied to study them but on getting to school, the excessively theoretical mode in which these courses are taught would start creating a barrier between the courses and them.

For instance, a student who is studying industrial chemistry might build dislike for the course because the only time he would visit the laboratory to see the application of his course might just be in his first year and a negligible part of his second year where simple experiments are carried out and that would be all.

The rest of his days would be spent learning physical chemistry, organic chemistry, environmental chemistry, polymer chemistry, nuclear chemistry etc. on the whiteboard.

If you find this to be the reason for disliking your course, I would suggest that you try the following methods to get to know more about its real life application.

i). Internship. Don't wait until you graduate before you go for internship. Internships are meant to open your eyes to the real life applications of your career. So whenever your school is on break, check out the industries that are built around your course of study and apply as volounteer (unpaid) intern, they will take you in.

In the case of the industrial chemistry student I mentioned earlier, he could try applying to pharmaceutical industries, paint-manufacturing industries, petroleum industries and so forth. Getting to see the real life application of one's course is a great way to building relevance and love for that course in one's heart.

In fact, if one utilises this opportunity to their own advantage by giving their best to the company, showing positive learning attitude and contributing their own little quota towards its, the might get noticed and get informed that a job is awaiting for them after graduation. This, even though, is not the primary goal, is another plus.

ii) YouTube. In this book, YouTube should be a chapter on its own or maybe paired with Google. Anyone who has the basic know-how of these two platforms and is ready to use them to his own advantage will find them invaluable to his academic pursuit. By now, you should have heard of the common slang "YouTube is the largest University in the world." I shall discuss more about YouTube in another chapter but for now, let's focus on what brought us to it.

A lot of industries, organisations are posting their activities on YouTube. You could easily check out the ones that relate to your course of study and see the applications for yourself. This brings to mind one of the ways I used this to my benefit when I was in school, I was thought a concept called "reverse osmosis" which is a modern method of water purification for town supply. It was so hard for me, I could not figure it out because it was conflicting with the traditional method of water purification I knew right from secondary school (Aeration, coagulation, sedimentation, filtration and disinfection). Let me quickly share something with you. I just listed the five-step traditional water purification method off-hand. I have always known it off-hand since 2014 after I had written WAEC. A question came in chemistry that required me to list them and explain them but I couldn't answer the question. One day after the examination, I was reading through a Chemistry textbook titled "Essential Chemistry" and I found a topic, purification of water for town supply. I studied it and found the answer to the question I failed in the exam. I could not forget it since then.
Two lessons to learn from this:
a. If you have all the best learning resources in the world, you will still fail your examinations if you don't use them. The textbook was mine even before the examination but I didn't study it.
b. If you fail today, don't fail tomorrow. I failed the question in the examination but I learnt it afterwards and I have taught it to people too. I have not had another opportunity of writing another exam in which the question is asked but if it ever comes, I will answer it. So you should learn to treat failure like a stepping stone to success.
I hope you gained something from that. Now let's proceed with our reverse osmosis discussion. So reverse osmosis is a modern method of water purification and that was my first time of hearing about it. And, as always, it was taught theoretically. My school at that time was producing drinking water but they didn't have the reverse osmosis system in place. It's quite costly so you can't easily find it around even with private water purification factories. The few ones that use it are usually proud to inscribe it on their bottles "RO treated." The next time you buy a sachet or bottled water, check it out but don't trust it because even the ones who can't afford it now have it inscribed in their labels. This is Nigeria.

I didn't understand how reverse osmosis worked until I visited YouTube. I downloaded two videos on the topic, one was instructional while the other was a real-life application of it. Trust me, even the instructional one made me understand the concept because it was taught in a more detailed manner than Nigerian lecturers would have taught it. They used a 3d animation concept to explain it. You can't get that in Nigeria.

I know how it feels to be pursuing a career in something that doesn't interest you; something in which you lack some natural ability or potential.

The problem isn't even in you graduating. The greater problem awaits you after graduation if your situation remains unchanged until then. You'd end making a bad doctor regardless of the fact that you are smart.

I've been there. I studied a course I never wanted. It was tough. I was struggling to pass. Whenever I had the chance of taking elective or general courses from the departments I should have been in, I would excel in them effortlessly.

But my course was a nightmare. I wouldn't be motivated to study it during my study sessions. I would go to the library and fall asleep reading my course. I would go to another session to read books that interest me and I would enjoy it. I would chuckle, smile, be deeply interested. I wouldn't fall asleep.

God helped me. I graduated with a 2.1. But here is it, I know I wouldn't make a good professional in my field. I know I didn't really understand the course. I only crammed and struggled to pass.

So it would be disastrous to apply a job in my field. It's been four years since I graduated and I have not applied for any job in my field. I dumped my course and my certificate. I am now following my passion.

People like me who still choose to continue working with their certificate are the bad, incompetent, frustrated, unmotivated doctors, nurses, engineers, chemists, pharmacists etc. you see around you everyday.

I am currently writing a book on "How to Graduate with First Class from Any University"

There's a chapter I titled "Who Are You?" to discuss this issue.

I will share it here, I hope you find it invaluable.

Lastly, before you make any decisions, please sit your parents down and make them understand your plight. There should be a mutual agreement. And you should never let them down. They love you more than anyone else.

Great.