The Struggles of College Students in Nigeria

           Hey y’all, welcome or welcome back to my blog, Jay’s Chronicles. It’s nice having you here. So I conducted a research on the struggles college students face in Nigeria. Basically, I asked some of my friends and acquaintances about their experiences. I want to use this opportunity to thank everyone who took the time out to respond to my messages. I appreciate it a lot.

Olamide (LASU)
         The first struggle is Sápá. You keep on spending and before you know it, you’re broke. School is just stress after stress, from assignments to exams to impromptu tests.

George (FUTO)
          To be very honest, school life has been really tough but we have no choice but to push further. I remember entering school just like yesterday. As a fresher, I didn’t really know much about school life so I was living in the moment and doing whatever my mates were doing. School life has been stressful and interesting due to the freedom you have at school. Lecturers give a lot of stress, so much that it’s frustrating to the point of tears but you will reach a point when even tears will refuse to come. Another issue is the pressure from parents to do extremely well in our academics, forgetting that some people discover their full potential in other areas( like dancing, music) apart from education in the university. My mum has been on my neck to graduate with a very high grade but that is different from what I want. I want to be a business man and earn income while in school. The main struggle is expenses. Lecturers basically use us to cash out, you can say that most of them are low budget Yahoo boys.

Motunrayo (Redeemer’s University)
           Time management is the major issue. I try as much as possible to manage time but unplanned events occur and just disrupt my plans. When this happens, it’s impossible to achieve effective use of time. Some days can be so overwhelming and you have things to do but the will to do them is just not there. I also tend to procrastinate. Sometimes, I have assignments and I put off doing them thinking I still have time to do them tomorrow. Lastly, the irregularity of electricity. Sometimes, there’s no electricity to read and if you try to read anyways, the heat is so bad that it makes you uncomfortable that you wouldn’t want to read. If you decide to go outside to read, you will be besieged by mosquitoes.

Idowu (UNIOSUN)
           Hostel is compulsory and cooking is prohibited in my school. To make it even worse, everything is expensive in school. We’re not allowed to cook yet buying food is expensive. Your allowance would finish in the blink of an eye. Lecturers don’t care whether you understand what they’re teaching, they would just teach and get out. Sometimes, they just copy notes and that is it. Also,the sport activities on our campus are very bad.

Divine (UNILORIN)
          Lecturers don’t care about the students or their mental health. Imagine having lectures from eight in the morning to six or seven in the evening. To get to school, I have to queue at the motor park for a minimum of one hour because buses are scarce. In the night after returning from lectures, you suddenly get a message that you have an assignment to be submitted at eight the next day. The worst part? The lecturers won’t even take time to read the assignments, they just grade it anyhow they like. The stress of the assignment is not worth it, I learnt that the hard way. During the first semester, we would work so hard on the assignments, fall sick and become lean only for the results to come out and what do you see? 9 as your score.9! Somebody got 30 in tests and 1 in the exam hall. How is that even possible? During exam period, you’re still attending classes. A week to the examinations, I was still attending classes from Monday to Saturday. There’s no break, no time to read. Being a college student in Nigeria is not worth it at all.

My thoughts
         University education in Nigeria is not all that is cracked up to be. After all the financial, mental and emotional struggles, you’re still expected to graduate with a high grade even while job opportunities are not assured. E choke.

Hey, lovely people. Don’t forget to like, comment, share and follow. I’m dying to hear your thoughts on this in the comments section. Don’t leave me hanging.