As opposed to my intended piece for this week, my heart is drawn towards most Nigerian undergraduate students who have been away from their citadels of learning for well over 8 months and now set to continue. In the light of their return to school, I have decided to dedicate the 8th chapter of my maiden book (ASSUMPTIONS-the dark and the bright sides) to any and everyone who needs to see this. It promises to be useful to whoever can be identified as a student or currently preparing for any exam of any sort.
As you resume school and/or get on any learning curve for any examination/process whatsoever; please avoid the pitfalls discussed below as a setup for Excellence!
1. I’m done learning: This might sound pretty straight forward, but it isn’t. This assumption is deeply rooted in overconfidence and is a dangerous place to be in. A lot of students assume that they have known it all and leave no room for any more learning. These guys either completely rule out the possibility of asking questions or consider those that ask as apparently incompetent. You must come to terms with the fact that learning never ends. At any point whatsoever, it is sheer wisdom to accommodate more learning and unlearning, even at the peak of knowledge. Extra learning exposes your seemingly hidden mistakes and gives you a shot at discovering better ways of handling problems. If you think you know too much, you could be shutting the door to success and embracing failure, without your consent.
2. I don’t need anybody: Also as viciously dangerous as the first is the assumption that you are self sufficient. Students that travel on this lane go fast but don’t go far. While you need friends who know better than you for you to learn from, you equally need friends you are better than in knowledge. In essence, those who you need to deliver to, in other to exercise what you know, via teaching them. I’m aware that you know that two good headsare better than one. Notice the emphasis on good heads! There are obviously some drainers and success mutilators which you must be wary of.
There is so much strength to tap from good association. As an undergraduate, I was largely strengthened by my circle of friends. They kept pushing me and showed me better and easier ways around problems. It’s not surprising that we kept excelling as a pack, even when we were faced with very tall mountains to climb.
3. I can’t do this: Also on the cards is the assumption of incompetence. As I hinted earlier, some courses require more of your smartness than sheer/ordinary hard work or just a dogmatic knowledge of the entire content of your syllabus. You must know yourself and what works best for you. Be realistic and never compare yourself to anyone. Dear student, there is actually nothing beyond you! If you keep setting these limits for yourself, you would keep hindering yourself and tilting towards failure. Whenever you find out that you are not getting something right, you don’t pretend, bottle in or collapse; you should rather find out what the problem really is. When you’ve found out, next is to take proactive steps for a redress
(may require that you seek help without any pride), backed up with a commitment not to look back. That’s how you win!
This could mean some real time diligence, discipline; garnished with some high level of consistency, admitting ignorance when you truly are ignorant of something, asking questions from friends and people that are clearly better poised at answering them, studying trends by reviewing past questions thoroughly, changing your friends if you truly have and need to, breaking into study groups and seeking counsel when you have and need to, and learning not to deceive yourself (a lot of students do this). At every point, even after a failure, you can overcome any hurdle. I have never and will never assume that anything is beyond me; I’ll rather fill any loophole that tries to threaten me. You can operate from this window too!
4. There’s still time; I’ll do it later: This slogan, which I’ll dub as the godmother of procrastination is the reason why so many students have failed so terribly and are still failing. They are usually very confident about this stance, as though they were the manufacturers and administrators of time.
Most tasks that are pushed to later times are never done; or better still done haphazardly. Again, while you do not have total control over your past and your future, an ever present link between both of them is the present which you have total control over. As a student with an ambition for excellence, you must have consistent study plans (which you must follow), treat assignments and projects with every sense of urgency, complete tasks way before their deadline, stop waiting till you hear rumours of tests and exams before you start preparing, treat every week in a semester like it’s the week of your exam.
One tip I found handy in school (and which you could also employ), was to always prepare for an impromptu test in the next class. Sometimes, it happened as I had predicted; at other times, it didn’t. The good thing however was that I was never caught unawares. Friend, quit making the assumption that there’s still time and that you’ll do it later. What this does to you is that it confers on you the evil medals of laziness and habitual carelessness. There is no better time than now!
5. I can choose what to study: This assumption should look quite familiar to you because it seems like the easy way out. As an undergraduate, I was a victim of this assumption at some point and I was exposed to an experience I do not relish. Except for trusted lecturers (which I still consider risky in most tertiary institutions at least) who give you guidelines and topics to concentrate on when studying for their exams, a safer stand point would be to have an all round knowledge of your course content/scope (which is very possible); before you start thinking of brooding on specifics. I have placed an emphasis on ‘trusted’ because you can have lecturers and teachers who are tricky enough to give you a bait to swallow. I can remember a lecturer back then who provided us with topics she was most likely to pick her questions from, only to shockingly dish out hot and entirely different questions upon writing her mid semester test. It took God’s grace for me to narrowly escape failure on that account. Thankfully, I still had an ‘A’ in that particular course after the final exams, thanks to the tricks I have earlier shared.
Often times, students make this assumption when they are in a rush hour and are pulling through crash programmes, just to meet up with an examination. At points like this, it becomes evident to them that not much can be done again; hence the choice to do and study what they consider the most important (according to them). You should in your own interest ensure that you are not caught up in this web by avoiding procrastination in the first place.
6. If I get good grades, I’ll surely get a job after school: I decided to talk about this lastly because for a large part of my undergraduate days, I was caught in this web. I only got out of it in the second semester of my 3rd year on campus; thanks to good counsel from my mentors and senior friends which I heeded to. I then ferociously began to chase capacity building since then and continued into my service year. I have surely been reaping the rewards from doing so!
While this assumption was extremely potent in times past, we now have an economic space and a paradigm shift that demands more from you, other than just having good grades (alone), especially in contemporary Nigeria. I urge you to prioritize skill acquisition and building important networks. The beautiful thing about building networks is that your networks can grant you access to quite a number of massive opportunities; most times, later than now.
In conclusion, I need you to fully understand that the result of making erroneous assumptions as a student is a below par performance and ultimately failure in the end. You should also avoid prioritizing shortcuts to success, as the process is supposed to be a crucial part of your making! A brigade/aggressive approach to fixing bugs could crash the entire system all together.
Thank you for giving out time to read this gift. It is my earnest prayer that it is valuable to you, that you practice these nuggets and that Nigeria becomes free from these national embarrassments. If you would want to purchase a copy of my entire book (I guarantee a pleasant read), kindly write me (contact channels are detailed below). I hope to see you again next week Monday for another amazing read. Kindly engage, share and follow.
