How to survive in Nigerian Universities
Are you wondering how to survive in Nigerian universities?
Have you recently gained admission into a university in Nigeria and you are wondering how to survive the Nigerian University environment?
If so, rest assured this post will really help you find your foot and learn how to survive on the school campus in Nigeria.
At the end of the post, I will share with you some 71 businesses a student can do in Nigeria. The business ideas that I will share are suitable for combining studies with schooling so never worry about losing focus.
Now, without much ado, below are some tips on how to survive in Nigerian university.
- Learn as much as you can about your school before resumption
- Be observant and don’t be quick to make friends
- Associate with truly upright students
- Never miss classes and always be punctual
- Get a perfect and convenient place for you to study
- Set a time to read and study daily
- Avoid 11th-hour preparation for exams
- Try hard to get good grades from the start
- Be informed about elective courses before choosing one
- Stay in school as much as you can
- Get close to the best students in your class
- Learn about scholarships available for grab
- Get to know your lecturers well enough
- Read widely, even outside your core
- Learn to prioritize and manage time wisely
- Organize yourself and be focused
- Connect with your classmates and be friendly to all
- Start preparing a career path from school
- Attend webinars, trainings and conferences as much as possible
- Learn about student-led groups that can help you become better
- Start a small side hustle to learn entrepreneurship first hand
- Learn to save money and not be extravagant
- Learn to cook by yourself and avoid eating out
- Prepare to cope with stress of lecturers and other challenges
- Use your support system
Table of Contents
How to survive in Nigerian universities
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Learn as much as you can about your school before resumption
While you are yet to resume school, this is the best time for you to learn as much as possible about your school.
For one thing, find a recent graduate of that school or a present undergrad in the school and ask them about certain things you will like to know about the school.
You may ask about the hostel life in the school; are there portable water and toilet facilities? are there good hostel rooms?
You may also want to ask how much these things cost in school.
How about the security and safety of students, are there no cultism activities in the school, etc.
When you find the answers to all these questions, you are better familiar with the school and you can prepare well for what is to come as you resume.
2. Be observant and don’t be quick to make friends
Another way to survive in Nigerian university is to be observant and not be quick to make friends.
When you finally resume on the campus, do not be quick to make friends. This is not because you don’t want to be a friendly person but because you do not know who is who.
Take your time to study people and know the people to avoid and whom you could make your friends.
Jambites or new students often attract new friends on the campus. Especially, if you are good-looking, rich or attractive somehow, lots of people would want to be your friend – both good and bad.
Be observant and know who to roll with. That’s how to survive on campus in Nigeria.
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Associate with truly upright students
Once you’ve taken your time to know who is who, it’s time to get close to one or two friends on campus.
Ensure they are people of good character, from good homes and not the bad boys or girls who would get you into trouble.
Remember, you are in school to study, make good grades, socialize and set the foundation for a good career and not get pregnant or become a murderer.
At the same time, school can be boring without having a friend or two with whom to gist and read, so choose wisely.
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Never miss classes and always be punctual
If you want to survive in a Nigerian universities, you need to take your studies seriously.
After all, that’s why you are in school in the first place.
Take classes very seriously and never ever miss a class or be late to classes.
Always be in the know of your courses and be a very diligent and serious student.
That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t socialize and have fun but make sure you prioritize your studies.
At the end of the day when you graduate, you will always have your certificate to show for it.
No one will ask you how many parties you attended or how many girlfriends you had in school; but if you had a very good grade out of school, you will be proud to tell people about it.
So, don’t ever jeopardize your classes for anything, even babes.
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Get a perfect and convenient place for you to study
If you want to make the best out of life in Nigeria, you need to study hard.
That means you need to find a reading spot that works for you.
Some love to read at the libraries. Some would rather read in their rooms at nights. Others, on the other hand, prefer to read very early in the mornings in the classes.
The earlier you find a reading location and position that’s best for you, the better.
That’s one factor that will help you to enjoy your university experience in Nigeria.
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How to survive in Nigerian universities: Set a time to read and study daily
Apart from setting the place and location for your reading, you also need to set a right time for your daily studies.
Do you know the benefit of having a fixed time of the day to read?
It makes your reading part of you; it becomes a habit.
So, if you set a particular time for your daily studies, say every 4:30 – 6:30 daily, if you follow the routine, it soon becomes part of you and voila! You have a lasting study habit that will benefit you greatly in life.
These 7 ways to read faster and still understand will help you.
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Avoid 11th-hour preparation for exams
This is one habit that will destroy your chances of doing well in school and making good grades.
Whatever it will cost you, never be an 11th-hour reader. It could even earn you an extra semester or an entire year in school when your mates would have graduated.
So, always read in advance. In fact, the best practice is to read your class notes daily so that you don’t pile them up.
When your lecturers take you on a course today, make sure you go back to it later in the day to study more about it.
Don’t wait till exams or tests dates have been announced before you start to read. Avoid 11th-hour preparation for exams if you want to survive in Nigerian university.
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Try hard to get good grades from the start
More than anything else, endeavour to have as many as possible As and Bs from the start. This is very crucial to your grade consequently.
It’s like you are building a house. Would you like to build the foundation with inferior and poor-quality material?
You wouldn’t. this is because you know that the quality of your foundation determines what the quality of the whole building.
Survival tips for coping in Nigeria
Similarly, the grades you start within your very first semester in school will determine not just how to survive your university year, but what grades you come out with.
Again, start early. Know the scores you need to have in each course to have a 4.8 CGP to start with.
Know the grades you need subsequently to come out with a 1st class and follow up with.
It’s all about planning. If you plan your grades, read hard and prioritize, you can be successful in the university in Nigeria and make you and your family very proud.
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Be informed about elective courses before choosing one
You can survive in Nigerian universities by being very choosy with electives.
You can’t afford to pick just any elective courses blindly. You need to make your findings.
Ask from senior colleagues and those in the departments from which you intend to choose a elective course.
You may also ask your course advisor about it.
Selective courses even though they may not carry lots of points can make or mar you.
Some departments are wrong to take an elective course. Some others like to delay students unnecessarily by not allowing them to pass.
So, make sure you do your homework and make informed selective course decisions.
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Stay in school as much as you can
How do you survive in university? By staying in school as much as you can. Sounds funny right? But that’s the secret.
You are in school to learn and not to become a traveler, so leave the traveling till you have all the time to do that.
I know it’s not easy to stay in school for months without even going home to see your love ones, but hey, that will help you stay focused.
When you go home, you are likely going to find it very difficult to read and study. So, the more you travel home the more you lose focus on your studies.
If you have your way, stay in school as long as you can to survive university in Nigeria.
How to survive in Nigerian universities
11. Get close to the best students in your class
Who would you want to make your close friends in school if not the brilliant ones?
Funny enough, you would come across some students who would be too proud to approach the brilliant students for assistance.
Don’t be in this clique. No. Be so humble that you become friends to those who are on top of the class. That’s one way to survive in Nigerian universities.
By being friends to the smart ones, it does mean you are stupid and dumb; it means you are very smart and you know what you are doing.
When you have these ones as your friends, you can rest, assured that your studies are covered. If you ever have a challenge with any course, you’ll always find help.
12. Learn about scholarships available for grab
To survive the university in Nigeria, you need money of course. Even if your parents are buoyant enough to easily pay your fees, you have the opportunity to support yourself with scholarships.
There are many scholarships and opportunities for students flying around on the campus. Get ready to grab as many scholarships as possible; from state to local government, individual and international scholarships.
Many people who have had the best time of their lives as students in Nigerian universities have won scholarships for themselves.
Imagine having some more money to get the necessary things you need like laptops and good mobile phones that will enhance your studies, all at no cost?
Better still, imagine that the responsibility of your school fees is taken off your parent’s necks?
Sounds good right? Glad that you know this. Now, go and get all those scholarships in school.
SEE ALSO: 51 BUSINESSES TO START IN NIGERIA WITH 100K
13. Get to know your lecturers well enough
Now, I am not saying you should start to date your lecturer, please.
That will do you more harm than good but you can develop a good relationship with your lecturer such that they become your friend.
If you notice that they have other motives however, I will advise that you stay far from them. But if you see that a lecturer is genuine and upright, you may want to be their friends.
In any case, don’t be too close to a lecturer and don’t show yourself to be their enemy; just be ‘cool’ with them. Use your discretion and be wise!
That’s how to survive in Nigerian universities.
14. Read widely, even outside your core course
If you want to survive in any situation in school and even outside of the school walls, you need to learn how to read widely.
Don’t restrict your reading to your departmental courses or elective courses alone, read anything you can lay your hands on.
Make sure you something about everything. That way, you can readily say you are an educated person and then, you can survive any situation you find yourself because you are informed.
15. Learn to priotize and manage time wisely
Time management is one of the soft skills you should learn if you want to survive on campus in Nigeria.
When you are in school, you will always have a ton of things to do daily.
From attending lectures to cooking; catching up with your studies, attending one or two shows and everything in-between, you will always have little time to do a lot of things.
So, you need to learn to manage your time wisely if you want to survive in school in Nigeria.
How to survive in Nigerian universities
How to do it? One of the things you need to do is to identify important activities and separate them from urgent activities.
Then prioritize important activities because these activities will have serious implication in your life.
Urgent activities like returning a call of a friend can always come after you’ve attended to important activities.
You could also get an alarm clock or use your mobile phone as alarm clock and use it to time your activities.
16. Organize yourself and be focused
Tip 16, if you want to survive as a student in Nigeria, organize yourself and stay focused.
Know what you want and always give it your best all the time. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by people or things around you.
17. Connect with your classmates and be friendly to all
Generally, make sure you are cool with as many as your classmates and school mates as possible.
In fact, some of the connections you make in the university will prove to be very useful to you beyond what you can imagine.
Never underrate anyone in school because of their status or social background. Be nice to people and make good lifelong friends in school.
18. Start preparing a career path from school
You don’t have to wait till you graduate before you know what you want to do with your life.
Knowing or at least having an idea of what you want to do with your life will help you survive in Unilag, Uniben or any university in Nigeria for that matter.
Start to pay attention to yourself and identify what your talents are. What are you most passionate about? What do you know how to do really good?
How to survive in Nigerian universities
When you eventually find the answers to these questions, it will help if you acquire needed skills to end you sharpen your raw talents and passion.
Then, think of how to monetize your passion because alone is not sufficient to base your career on, it’s needs to be profitable.
If you want to go into academics and become a professor, start pursuing that line as early as possible.
You may want to become a professional footballer, start now. If you want to becomelike the successful entrepreneurs in Nigeria, it’s not too early to start now.
19. Attend webinars, trainings and conferences as much as possible
As s student who wants to cope with university here in Nigeria, you must make sure you attend the most relevant webinars/seminars, trainings and conferences.
These avenues are where ad to your knowledge apart from what your lecturers teach.
You would widen your horizon and become a more informed and enlightened person. And this will reflect on your studies and other aspects of your life. That’s how to survive in Nigerian universities.
20. Lean about student led groups that can help you become better
Don’t just be satisfied with lectures and reading in the library, find out about student groups and associations that are good for you.
Writing and publishing groups; drama troupes, music groups, volunteering groups, etc. are some groups you could join.
Also join good association that will help you become a better developed and enlightened student.
21. Start a small side hustle to learn entrepreneurship first hand
Who knows, you might become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world pretty soon with a very successful chain of businesses.
If you love entrepreneurship and love to build businesses, why not start little now that you are in school.
Student entrepreneurs learn the entrepreneurship in practical terms are quickly acquire business acumen than most of their mates who wait till they graduate.
However, student entrepreneurship is not for everyone. If you know you wouldn’t be able to combine studies and other things, you might as well not start in school.
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Learn to cook by yourself and avoid eating out
One big factor that will make you survive in Nigeria university is to learn how to cook simple meals by yourself.
You can’t afford to eat out all the time. Even if you have the money, you may not really always be sure of the hygiene of restaurants.
Cooking your own simple meals makes you eat better and improves your health. If you have stew or soaps cooked over the weekend, you can use for a week.
Easy meals like rice, noodles are always a quick fix.
Remember to always to eat plenty of fruits, vegetables and take lots of water.
23. Learn to save money and not be extravagant
Students are always boxed up. But hey there are times when you may actually be broke and in need of some money so, learn to be prudent.
When you have surplus, save some for rainy days.
Besides, as young person, there might be some investment you would need to make on yourself that will cost you money.
Truth is, you don’t want to always run to your parents for such needs, so please learn how to save.
24. How to survive in Nigerian universities: Use your support system
You can also survive in Nigerian univeirsities through your support system.
Your support system may range from your parents to your close cousins, uncles and aunties or trusted and reliable family members and friends.
When the pressure in school gets rather unbearable, call them and speak to them. They would always be there to offer advice and support in your times of need.
How to survive in Nigerian universities
25. Prepare to cope with stress of lecturers and other challenges
Tell you what, you should also prepare your mind and heart for the stress that will come your way.
When you are mentally prepared for all that comes your way in school, you are able to cope better and survive your way through. That’s how to survive in Nigerian universities.
There you have it. These are some of the ways you can survive in any university in Nigeria.
As I promised you at the beginning of this post, I will share some 71 businesses that you can do in school and make legit money for yourself without being distracted. Here they are:
- Blogging
- Become a YouTuber
- Freelance writing for blog or websites
- Social media management
- Social media influencer
- Start a Paid Private Facebook Group
- App development
- Website design
- Programming
- Master SEO and render your services to bloggers
- Dropshipping
- Graphic designing
- Content writing
- Baking
- Photography
I shared the rest of the best businesses you can do as a student in Nigeria here.
There we go, thanks for staying this long, and please, feel free to say share your thoughts in the comment session.
Fine and I good