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If you watched a lot of movies set on university campuses before you actually got admitted, there is a possibility that you had a wrong idea of how things work in these places. Here are some of the lies movies have told us about life at the university:
1. The lie: You will have a flexible sleep schedule
The truth: Your early morning lectures will rob you of this. Even when you don’t have 7 AM classes to attend, the thought of the assignments you have to turn in will keep you up for a long period of time, downing insane amounts of caffeine or finding other creative ways to stay awake.
2. The lie: You will have money to eat out all the time
The truth: Not like you won’t eat at restaurants or anything, but there will be times when you realise that cooking in your hostel is the best thing you can do for yourself.
3. The lie: You will always hang out with your friends
The truth: To be honest, if your friend isn’t in your faculty, department, or hostel, chances are that you won’t see them for weeks non-stop. At best, you will run into them while trying to get to a 9 AM lecture.
4.The lie: University life is all about parties and getting wasted
The truth: Let’s just blame Hollywood for this. No, you won’t go to parties every weekend. And you won’t be hungover when you go to your classes on Monday. Not when you have a lot of courses to catch up on.
5. The lie: You will be BFFs with your roommate
The truth: The odds of this happening are actually very small. Sure, you can be friendly with them, but they won’t become the person you tell everything that’s happening in your life. Besides, you will likely change rooms and get new roommates every year. You can’t be best friends with all of them.
6. The lie: You will have a very active love life
The truth: See ehn, partners are hard to find, even in universities crawling with young and horny adults.
Do you have to write an exam from home? Gather here, let us cry together
1) Network Issues
Network is bad on a normal day, but the day you want to write exam? That is when they will not even give you one bar. You click submit and suddenly, page is frozen.
2) Loneliness
You are writing a difficult paper and in the midst of answering a tough question, you look beside you for “encouragement” and there is nobody. You are all alone
3) Rules
When writing exams in schools, the rules are never these many. Why do we need so many rules, we are harmless
4) Distractions
Try as family may to give you privacy during exams, if you have younger siblings, it is basically impossible. During your exam is when your mother remembers she wants to change her profile picture on Wazzap.
5) Study time
Not enough time to study. They think because we are at home, the one week before exams they gave us is enough. No dear, it is not.
6) Server
Sometimes, it is not even your own network messing you up. You will be writing the exam and suddenly, server is down. Your paper gets submitted for you and you get 1/50. How will you cry?
7) Electricity
NEPA does not cooperate on a normal day, is it when you need them? Middle of exam they will take light, laptop will die, Wi-fi will go off, server will crash. If your village people cannot get you directly, they use NEPA
Job hunting is hard enough as it is, but doing that while still a student? Hell. If you have ever had to look for a job while in school, then this post is for you. Warning: painful content ahead
1) Degrees
Every single job opening is looking for someone with a degree. Some even want people with two or three degrees. Honestly, why can they not just manage the fact that some of us do not one yet? Please, employers, consider us
2) Job Experience
We do not have the degree, is it now job experience we can produce from nowhere? Hire me and give me the experience. I command you!
3) Age
Jobs will list that they are looking for people not less than 25, and you with your 19 year old birth certificate will just be there wondering why your parents did not get it on sooner. Pain, that is all we know. We blame all the people that call youths future leaders. Let us lead now.
4) Schedule
You cannot search for JUST any job, you need one that matches your schedule because you are a busy person. The kind of jobs available will now usually be around the time Prof Ahmadi sets tests. Questions will now begin to be asked. School or money? Decisions, decisions.
5) Pay
You finally get the job, and what do they want to pay you with? Vibes and exposure. They will tell us if we can pay for the things we use with vibes or exposure. Rubbish.
Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe has dismissed his removal as Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos calling it an “illegality.”
News broke on Wednesday that the professor of Botany was removed from his role as Vice-Chancellor of the university in a Governing Council meeting at the NUC Headquarters in Abuja. This was confirmed in a statement signed by the registrar stating that the council removed the VC on grounds of financial recklessness, gross misconduct, among other charges.
However, Professor Ogundipe has come out to dismiss the removal. In a signed statement, he says that the removal is in clear violation of the University of Lagos Act. He, therefore, urged the public to disregard the “mischievous disinformation.”
“Professor Ogundipe still remains Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos.” the statement reads.
In related news, the UNILAG arm of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has thrown their weight behind him and condemned his removal.
Meanwhile, the Governing Council of the university has appointed a professor of sociology, Professor Theophilus Soyombo as Acting Vice-Chancellor of the university.
Unbelievable things happen on university campuses. Sometimes, the students are active players in these things. At other times, they can only watch as the situations unfold. This week, I spoke to a couple of students studying at University of Port Harcourt and got them to talk about the wildest thing that has happened to them. From run-ins with lecturers and cultists to extortion by security operatives, these students have some stories to share.
Angela— I fended off a lecturer’s advances and it became a problem
Sometime in my second year, I was at the faculty to attend a class when a lecturer called me into his office. He asked about my CGPA and offered to help me with whatever I didn’t understand about his course. I thought that was it until he reached for his desk and brought out some sweets, which he tried to feed me. I excused myself, telling him that I had a class to attend. He let me go with clear instructions that I had to return.
I didn’t go back and avoided him for the longest time. He asked my course rep to fetch me and dismissed her when we got to his office. Again, I was alone with him. He didn’t waste time this time before trying to kiss me. I was so disgusted that I didn’t know when I yelled at him to stop. He was taken aback and I used the opportunity to flee his office.
A few days before exams, he sent my course rep to tell me that “exam has come oh, how far?”
I knew what that meant. However, I didn’t go to see him. When the results came out, I got an E in his course — I did well in school and I was confident that I was poised for an A.
I told my mum what happened. My mum told my dad. And my dad reported the situation to someone in the school senate and the person took it up. It wasn’t fun for me. Suddenly, everybody knew about it and started to spread rumours. In class, the lecturer started to pick up on me. It was really overwhelming for me. At some point, I wasn’t interested in going to class anymore. It blew over eventually, but being in that situation wasn’t a fun thing. It was too much drama.
AJ — I was almost attacked in my lodge
One of my neighbours threw a party at my lodge. My friends and I hung around for a while before we got tired and went back to my room, thinking the night was over. Around 11 PM, one of my friends barged into the room, sick with worry. The only thing I could make out of what he was saying was that we should turn off the generator.
We turned the generator off. Then we found out why he was so alarmed. In the silence of the night, we heard the flat side of a machete landing on people’s backs, followed by loud screams.
It had to be a robbery. We quickly hid our phones because there was the possibility that they would storm our room too. We also looked for a potential exit point in the ceiling where we could hide if the situation became more than we can handle.
Within minutes, someone was knocking on our window, ordering us to let them in. Everyone froze in fright. We had no choice but to obey. We nominated someone to go out and open the door, expecting the worst.
Then this guy walked in with a machete and a gun. However, It was the chief security officer of my community. And he was there to disrupt the party we were at earlier because nobody bribed him before the party took place. So, he came there to extort people and physically harass them. It was either that or he would call the police on them. He searched the room, looking for weed, but he found nothing and left us alone. My friends and I got out of the situation unharmed, but it was really unsettling.
Chinwa — My friend laced my food with weed
I went to see a friend. She cooked noodles and offered it to me. I didn’t know, but she had laced it with weed. She was supposed to make my hair, but the weed took effect quicker on her. She told me she wanted to sleep and I decided to leave. I had barely made it to the car park before I lost all sense of self. Then I realised what she had done.
I flagged down a cab and offered to pay for all the seats. During the ride, I found out that I didn’t have enough money on me, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get home. Nobody picked my call when I got to the hostel, so I had to climb the flight of stairs to get money to pay the cab.
It was the most difficult thing I’d ever done. When I finally settled all that, I returned to my room and flopped down on my bed. Now, I couldn’t sleep. I was so out of it that I could have sworn that the room was spinning in frantic motion.
I didn’t know when I finally slept off or for how long I slept. But I woke up with the worst hunger ever. But it was 11 PM and all the shops had closed. I couldn’t get food until the morning.
Ekele — I went clubbing with friends and became stranded
We had just finished writing the semester exam and there was a party at a club near one of the university three campuses — Choba campus. My friends thought we deserved to go out and have fun. I agreed to it after making both of them promise that we would leave early.
The plan was to leave the club around 9 PM. When that time came, my friends were nowhere near ready to go. I contemplated leaving them there, but I decided against it.
We left the club around 11 PM. However, the roads were empty, save for a few cabs. Our campus was about 30 minutes away but we were stranded. Eventually, we saw a taxi and three other people joined us. Midway into the trip, the driver said he wasn’t going to take us to our actual campus — Delta Campus — so, he dropped us off close to the main gate of Choba campus.
Now, it was 12 midnight or thereabout. And we were three ladies walking the streets of Port Harcourt. I’d never felt unsafe like that in a long time. We weren’t going to make it to the campus, so my friends decided that they would sleep at one of their friend’s, but I wasn’t up for that. I decided to spend the night inside the school. Luckily, one of my friends was still writing her exams and was studying at the campus that night. I found her and stayed with her till until morning. Finally, I got back to my apartment, rethinking my decisions from the previous night. I haven’t been to another club since that time.
Belema — I squared up with a suspected cultist
I was watching a football match between my department and a set of guys from another department. We were trailing behind on goals and tensions were already building up. Close to the end of the match, a player on the opposing team made a bad foul on a player from my team.
An argument broke out because of this and it didn’t die down, even after minutes had passed. Out of nowhere, a guy came on the field and declared the match over. He acted like he owned the place and this irritated me so much.
For some reason, everyone just stood there and did everything he said. I approached my coursemates and asked them why they let a “big olodo boy” tell them what to do.
A couple of his friends heard this and reported what I said to him. He was mad that I called him an olodo and turned his attention to me. He said a lot of things — about how badly he would deal with me. I don’t know where the strength came from but I stood up to him.
In the heat of the moment, I didn’t realise that my coursemates were asking me to keep quiet. Word was that he was a cultist. Things calmed down only because one of my coursemates called his brother, and for some reason, he was able to call him off.
I wasn’t scared of him at the time, but thinking about it sometimes makes me wonder what I was thinking and where the surge of confidence came from.
The Governing Council of University of Lagos, led by the Pro-chancellor and Chairman of Council, Babawale Babalakin, has removed Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe as Vice Chancellor of the university.
This happened at the Governing Council meeting that took place at the headquarters of the National Universities Commission, Abuja, on Wednesday, August 12, 2020.
According to Premium Times, Mikhail Mumuni, the media adviser to Chairman of the governing council confirmed the incident. But the details are still unclear as the media adviser didn’t provide additional information on the development.
The development has also been confirmed in a release signed by the registrar of the university, Oladejo Azeez.
Professor Ogundipe, who was appointed the 12th vice-chancellor of the university in November 2017 was accused of “serious acts of wrongdoing, financial recklessness, gross misconduct, and abuse of office.”
11 out of 12 council members attended the meeting that confirmed his exit, majority of whom voted for his removal.
Various sources report that the relationship between the chancellor and the vice-chancellor has not been the best over management issues, which came to a head recently when the National Universities Commission (NUC) ordered the suspension of the 2020 convocation ceremony.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information comes to light.
Students in Nigerian universities have stories to tell, but hardly anyone to tell them to. For our new weekly series, Aluta and Chill, we are putting the spotlight on these students and their various campus experiences.
A good experience at university and other institutions of higher learning revolves around valuable information. For many people, this process starts before they get their offer of admission. However, there’s only so much anyone can know when they are not in the school community. The moment they become a part of the community, new information often comes to light.
This week, I asked students at 5 different universities to talk about the most important information they wish they had about their schools or courses before they got admitted.
Favour, Covenant University – I wish I knew I could get in trouble even if I did nothing wrong
I heard a lot of stories about Covenant University before I got in, and I thought I was ready for whatever the school was going to throw at me. For a moment there, I thought people were reaching when they talked about how regimented life at the school was. They treated us nicely when we first got in, but the moment we had our matriculation ceremony, a lot of things became real.
It was interesting to see how they made chapel services more important than classes, but I didn’t stress myself too much about that. However, it was scary to find out that I could get in trouble for doing nothing wrong.
During one of the chapel services, I led the praise and worship session. I was so into it that day and there was a lot of energy. After the session ended, one of the hall officers approached me and asked me to give him the name of the drug I took before the service started. I thought it was a joke at first, but it wasn’t. He whipped out an offence form and asked me to fill it. In the end, he promised that he would come back to fetch me and take me for a drug test.
The story travelled fast and it got to the Dean of Students. Fortunately, he didn’t think I was guilty of drug use. He looked for me and apologised about the whole situation, promising to take care of it. I guess he did because nothing happened after that.
Anyway, it would have been great to know that getting admitted to study at this university isn’t a problem but staying till the end of the 4 or 5 years is. There were 209 students in my class when I came in. At the moment, there are only 67 students in the same class. The rest were either expelled or dropped out of school.
I would still make the choice to come to school here, though. I believe that the advantages of studying here outweigh the disadvantages.
Tamilore, Olusegun Agagu University of Science and Technology,— My school community has no power, and nobody told me
My dad sold the idea of going to university in my hometown to me and I agreed. I wrote UTME, applied to the school, and I got in.
That should be where this story ends, but there was a surprise waiting for me. The town of Okitipupa where the school is located has no power supply. The university runs on generators 100% of the time.
Coming to terms with this was a big struggle. I didn’t have a generator when I was in 100 level, so I used to go to a hotel close to where I lived to charge my devices. The worst thing that came with this power situation was the heat. There were lots of uncomfortable nights that could have been mitigated if there was power.
In my third year, I bought a generator. I have to spend more to fund this lifestyle, but the quality of my life has been better. However, I wish someone had told me about the non-existent power situation before I got in. It wouldn’t have changed much, but it would have been good to know.
Fisola, University of Ilorin — My life would have been easier if I knew the university wasn’t as liberal as I thought
My first roommate in university was fun, but she always found a way to get on my last nerve. We were both Yoruba. I am not a fluent speaker. She left me out of most conversations when her friends were in the room. The way they went about it, I couldn’t fit in with them because I couldn’t speak the language as well as they did.
When I eventually moved out of the room and the campus to the college of health sciences, I found out something new. I realised that the thinking of some students at the university was deeply rooted in patriarchy. In my second year, I was in a group with these guys for a class project. I thought collaboration mattered here. I tried to bring everyone together to exchange ideas and find out the best way to execute the project. However, the boys in the group didn’t take kindly to this. According to them, that role wasn’t mine to take because of my gender. They were telling me to know my place and stay in it. This was a big culture shock that I didn’t sign up for.
I expected the university to be a place where everyone could be the best version of themselves without dealing with any form of subjugation. I got that wrong. My life would have been easier if I knew that before I got in.
Mojolaoluwa, University of Lagos — I wish I researched my department before I accepted the admission offer
I applied to University of Lagos to study Medical Laboratory Science, but I didn’t get it. Instead, I got Human Kinetics and Health Education. The Health Education bit drew me in, and I thought I could do with it.
I could not.
The first class I had at school was at a swimming pool. The scary part was that I had to dive into the pool. I almost drowned in a pool when I was nine years old, which made me develop a phobia for swimming. Now, I had to swim to pass a course.
Also, I hated all forms of sports, but the Human Kinetics part of what I’m studying requires me to participate in a lot of sports. There was an exam I practised so hard for. It was a track and field course, and I was supposed to do a triple jump and a long jump. I’d barely started running before I tripped and twisted my ankle. Also, when it was time for the Javelin throw, my stance was so bad that the javelin travelled a short distance before it fell flat. This was an exam, and if there wasn’t a theory part, I probably would have failed the exam.
I had no idea that this course would be very physical and I wish I had done more research. I probably would have still accepted the offer, but the reality of it wouldn’t hit heavily as it did.
Precious, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture — It would have been great to know that I wasn’t coming here to solve problems
I wrote JAMB three times before I got admitted to study Mechanical Engineering at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture. I was disillusioned with the whole process at this point. When my provisional admission offer arrived in my mail, I had a brief moment when I thought about deleting the mail, but I got over myself, accepted the offer and went off to school.
I had many thoughts about how my time at the university would go, but I didn’t know I was coming here to cram scientific formulas to reproduce during exams. All my life, I thought Mechanical Engineering was about creating value and solving problems, but these didn’t happen.
There was this school project I had to do in my third year. I was supposed to build a machine, but I had no idea how to get it started. For starters, I couldn’t even weld anything together. Not that I didn’t want to, but there was little room for practicals. Before that time, we had a class on welding and the technician wouldn’t even let us near the tools. According to him, he wanted only people who had welding experience because he didn’t want anyone to damage the machine. Yes, this happened in a supposed place of learning.
I think I would have prepared myself better if I had known that I wasn’t coming here to solve any problems. And maybe I would have made different choices too.
Are you currently studying in Nigeria or elsewhere and have a story to share about your life in school? Please take a minute to fill this form and we will reach out to you ASAP.
Can’t get enough Aluta and Chill?Check back every Thursday at 9 AM for a new episode. Find other stories in the series here.
Life after university is usually characterised by a lot of firsts for many people. Two of the most memorable moments are the first job and the first salary. Recently, we asked some Nigerian graduates to talk about their first job hunting experience. This time, we asked 5 people how they spent their first salary.
Romoke
Towards the end of my service year, someone I used to work for put out a call for a project manager. I reached out to her and asked if I could work remotely. After some back and forth, I got the job.
She was trying to build an online business school, and she made me the business manager. I was responsible for the team and ensuring that we worked with timelines.
The job paid me ₦50000, which I had no problem with. I knew how competitive the job ecosystem in Nigeria is. At that moment, I was more interested in all the things I could learn on the job. It paid off in the long run.
The salary was more than what I earned as a corps member too, and that was good. But also, I knew that there were about to be more expenses. In fact, the bulk of what I had left after savings was spent on moving back to Lagos. Then, my sister had to write an exam and I paid for it. I didn’t have a choice there, anyway.
A lot has changed since that time. Now, I’m better at managing family expectations. There will always be something they need me to take care of, but it doesn’t hurt if I take care of myself too. Black tax can rob anyone of financial independence, and I’m not about to let that happen to me.
Tosin
I worked in a communications role for an NGO in my first job. I created and developed a content calendar for social media, wrote and curated content for the newsletter. The NGO worked with a lot of volunteers, and I was also put on the task of managing these volunteers and organizing training for them.
There were a couple of additional responsibilities but my salary wasn’t even up to ₦50000. This was ironic because I’d hoped for a 6-figure salary. Nevertheless, I took the job. It was an intern role and I held out hope of becoming a full staff as soon as possible.
However, my expenses at the time were way more than my salary. I don’t know how it would have played out if I didn’t have a means of making extra money on the side.
When I got my first salary, I knew adulting was in full effect for me, and that was exciting. I invited a few of my friends out to celebrate. About 50% of the money went to lau-lau spending and enjoyment. I couldn’t kill myself.
What remained was only enough to sort out my commute for the month. It helped that I’m the last child of my parents, so there was nothing I wanted to take care of at home that wasn’t already being handled. The only person I had to worry about was myself.
Esther
My first job was at a media company. I was hired to handle their social media. At some point, I had to do a bit of graphic design, even though that bit wasn’t in my offer letter.
My total package was ₦40000, but they paid an extra 10000 for data. I worked remotely for most of the week, only going once a week for the general meeting, or on days when I had to be behind the scenes for a shoot.
The salary wasn’t a lot but I was sort of excited about it. I thought it was a fair deal, considering that it was my first job post-university. I had no prior experience and felt that they took a risk hiring me.
When I finally got the money, I was so at peace with myself. I knew I earned it, and that felt good.
I split the money into two parts — ₦20000 went into my savings. It was important that I didn’t run out of data, so that was probably the first thing I spent the money on. Another portion went to paying tithe. The rest went into making sure I survived the month and black tax — it wasn’t a lot, but it was something.
Looking back now, I’m not so sure how I managed to do so much with the salary.
Mariam
After I finished NYSC, my dad got me a job as a part-time lecturer at a polytechnic. It was the first time I knew the difference between gross and net salary. My offer letter came with a ₦120000 salary, but after tax and some other deductions I didn’t understand, there was ₦114000 left for me to take home.
The fact that I was getting such a relatively large sum of money was overwhelming. I knew how impulsive I get when I’m excited, so, I left the money in my account for two weeks.
To be honest, I had plans about how to spend the money. But did I stick to them? I’m not sure. There was a couple of lunch dates. I did a bit of movies. A lot of Bolt rides. And yes, skincare products.
In the end, I realised that the money wasn’t even as much as I’d thought it was. It was fun, but nobody taught me before I became more responsible with spending.
Dara
I worked as a graphic designer in the marketing department of a technology company. They offered me a ₦50000 per month salary for a start. They were going to reopen negotiations after I spent six months with them.
I didn’t feel particularly ecstatic about the money. I understood that there was a lot more I could be making. All I wanted to do was to make sure I earned more as soon as possible.
I’ve always been big on saving, and I’m very military about how I do it. When I got my first salary, my primary preoccupation was saving as much as I could. I put 20% into my savings. The bulk of the others went into feeding and transportation. The most important thing was that I stuck with this routine for my entire stay there.
I didn’t wait for the raise before I left the company. I got a better offer in the third month and decided that it was time to move on.
