The Struggles of a Nigerian University Student

Every high school student looks forward to going to the university on completion of high school; the initial excitement, thoughts of being free from troublesome high school teachers, moving to the next level, being classified as a big boy or girl, and the freedom attached to it constantly fills our mind. Don’t we all want some freedom, being able to do whatever we want without parental restriction? They say the university is a fun place to be; that’s right, the freedom exists but there is also the pain behind the fame.

Disclaimer: I’ve got no idea if what I’m about to share also happens in universities of other countries, I’d rather not talk about those as I intend only to share my personal experience as a Nigerian student in Nigeria. Therefore it should be known that I do not intend to tarnish the image of any Nigerian university but to share my personal experience as previously stated in my article titled “weirdest things about Nigerian Universities”.

Wake Early or Stand

The lecture theatres are always smaller than the intended capacity hence you’d have to wake up super early to get to the theater before 6.30am or you’d have to stand throughout the lecture. This happens especially with first year students where they’d have to attend a combined faculty course; courses like PHY101, BIO101, MAT101 and the likes were faculty courses hence the entire first year faculty of science which consists of over 1000 students will have to compete for limited seats in the lecture theatre. Coming late means you’d have to stand at the back of the class and in some cases you’d have to listen to the lecture through the window; struggles here and there.

During my time as a student, some of my colleagues usually slept in the lecture theatre on Sunday nights in order to secure a space for the 7am GST class, getting to the lecture theatre by 6.15am means you’ve gotten yourself a standing visa. Isn’t that stressful enough for you to want to quit school?

Impromptu Test

Schooling can be really stressful, there are some days you’d decide you gotta relax a bit and not attend class then kaboom…., the unexpected happens. Your colleague returns from school and says “we had a test today”. “What…..test? But we were not told”, welcome to Nigerian universities. You’d wake up on a Monday morning with hopes of simply attending class and relaxing after the stressful day then a lecture walks in and says “tear a sheet of paper”, damn I hate those words, no student likes to hear those especially if not previously announced. The annoying thing is those impromptu tests are usually recorded as actual tests and whoever misses it is on his or her own. I think those lecturers simply derive joy in failing students and there’s nothing you or anyone can do about it.

Missing scripts

It is very common to hear about missing examination scripts in Nigeria, I’ve always heard about in since my secondary school days. This has never been taken seriously and the student will have to bear the consequence of the lecturer’s negligence. I do not think there is a regulatory body controlling the actions of lecturers to ensure mistakes like these do not happen. There is no defendant for the student hence you’d have to hope and pray your script doesn’t go missing or you’d have to re-register the course the following year. It is automatically your fault that your script is missing, regardless of whether your name appears in the examination attendance or not.

Sick or not, exams are do or die

I don’t know if this happens anywhere but over here if you’re sick or perhaps got into an accident during exam period, there will be no preferential treatment for you. You’d have to write the exam or you’d fail (get ready to register it next year).

I remember that during my first year while we were writing MAT101 exam, some students passed out…yeah they fainted during the exam probably because it was too tough. Ambulance from the health center came in, they were given CPR or whatever they do to unconscious people; the students regained consciousness and had no choice but to continue the exam.

My roommate had an accident during our second year, I remember it was a night before “physics of the solid earth” (PHY218), it was a bike crash where he sustained minor injuries but the lady on the other bike got badly injured and couldn’t stand up on her own. Unfortunately she had exams the following day, she had to be admitted in the school health center cos’ her legs were broken, when it was time for her exams the ambulance took her to the exam hall, wrote her exams, and brought her back to the health center. Isn’t that cruel? We really go through a lot over here.

CBT has always been a problem

We had to use computers for our first year exams due to the stress involved in marking scripts of over 2000 students. Unfortunately CBT (computer based test) has always been a problem, I guess the computers are not properly programmed hence our grades were usually affected badly. You’d see a really intelligent student having “D’s” while the unintelligent ones come out with A’s, the answer to questions are not properly programmed, the system sometimes scrambles the results, some students also complain of their computers suddenly going off during the exam without anyone caring about their predicament.

I remember that a lady begged me to teach her MAT102 (which basically consists of integration and differentiation) a night to the exam, I taught her for over two hour off hand and made sure she understood the concept completely. We wrote the exams the following day, results came out a month after she had an “A” while I came out with a “C”. I felt like setting the CBT center on fire out of anger but had to get over it, I’m glad she also admitted that she got lucky.

Asking questions may get you into trouble

Asking questions in class may sometimes get you in trouble depending on the kind of lecturer you’re dealing with. Lecturers are not gods hence we don’t expect them to know everything. Some lecturers tend to take some questions really personal especially if it’s a question they cannot answer, they feel like the question was asked deliberately in order to embarrass them.

My sister’s husband once said a lecturer failed him for two consecutive years because he simply asked for the real life application of the course, a question which the lecturer couldn’t answer. The lecturer took it personal and decided to embark on a personal vendetta. All thanks to the schooling system, such lecturer cannot be queried.

You can never understand in class

I do not know if this happens in other department but the department of physics has always had its share of this problem from the third year upwards. Third year physics is where the real Physics begins, from electromagnetic theory to circuit theorem, analytical mechanics and so on.

I remember that we were having electromagnetic theory II; the lecturer in charge was a woman. She came to class and started writing the derivations on the board (derivation of about three to four pages) without explaining a single thing. One of us shouted “we don’t understand o”, her response was “when I was in school we don’t understand in class, we get home, study and understand”. That was the weirdest response ever but I consider it as her way of indirectly saying she doesn’t know how to explain it. Physics can be so tough that even the lecturers can’t explain it. We usually resorted to tutorial videos and crammed the entire note word for word in preparation for exams.

And so on…. There are many more frustrating experiences I had during my university days. If I had to mention them all I’d literally spend all day writing about it while time passes me. I know we’ve all had experiences in the university that may vary slightly from the above mentioned. Feel free to share your experience in the comment section.