When I was a lot younger, I was forced into primary school, it was hell for me; having to see those seemingly sad teachers everyday of the week was a disaster for me, but I looked forward to the day we wrote our common entrance examination for admission into secondary school. It felt like life was at its peak, I felt like I had finally been relieved of this burden of education. That was it; I graduated from that wonderful primary school, the foundation of my academic pursuit, little did I know that that was just the beginning.
My parents had promised to send me to one of the best secondary schools at the time, unity schools were just out of this world, they had a way of exposing your children to the real life of struggle and perseverance, so it was that I found myself in a town hundreds of miles away from the place I had always known as home.
My secondary school was at the outskirt of a local town, we shared boundaries with the natives but we were enclosed in a sort of large expanse of prison yard where the rule of law was at the mercy of the marauding seniors. Seniors then were as old as my uncles and they had such nicknames that would automatically send shivers down your spine – Phantom, Orang-utan and the likes and just like the names, they were ferocious and bestial. I had no other prayer than, Lord please see me through this valley of the shadow of death, even though I fear evil, you will always be with me.
With every passing year, the seniors became more humane and younger; things were becoming bearable but having to survive on far too little provisions makes you get home sick. I got to the top class and it felt like the years should never run by anymore, but I knew some daring juniors would be saying the same prayers we used to say, we had to leave someday, sometime, plus we also had our eyes on that institution where you can wear what you like, eat what you love and you can hardly tell the students form the teachers - they call it tertiary institution.
For some, it was a smooth ride from secondary school to the university, others had to fast and pray for years, the first challenge was passing the qualifying examinations, and the second is getting admitted. As the years went by, the number of those searching for a space increased, it became who know who, where and how. Some of us were so unlucky that we had to wait some five years to get a slot, but however, we did get a slot.
Getting into the university was a different ball game entirely, it was survival of the fittest, you must have at least a 1.5 grade point (even though most of us did not understand what that entailed), some were dropped by the way side, some were eaten up by the birds of examination malpractice, some were choked up by the cares of fashion, gigs, movies and games and of course, some were deeply rooted in the soil of academics.
We thought it was a world of freedom, but it really was a life of fear, intimidation, hopelessness and maybe faith. Your class mates will make you feel like you are the dumbest fool that ever lived – they always had an idea of whatever the lecturer said even if their results would say otherwise, your lecturers remind you that no one can ever perform brilliantly in their courses no matter how hard you try or wherever you might be coming from. For the ladies (though some), you must warm up the lecturer’s bed or have your script wormed up. As you begin to think of how to make up with some assignments, others pile up, and before you finish it all, you get ready for your continuous assessment of course before the results are out, examination knocks at your door. There seems to be no time at all and you only wish you can do your bit and just graduate from the stressful life.
It seems to me like everything is but a continuous cycle, wherever you are, you always wish to just graduate and get to the next level, and just when you get there, you realise there is nothing there after all, or there isn’t much difference after all, then you want to graduate to the next level again.
When I was in primary school, my prayer was “if only I could get to secondary school I would be better”, when in secondary school, it was “I just can’t wait to graduate and go to the university”, and the story is not different in the university. Truly with a close look at everything, nothing seems to have changed after all; but I learnt something in this my last phase.
It is not how fast or even how well you finished your race that matters, it is how best have you been able to utilize the time you had there? What have you done within your time frame? How many people will be sad to miss you? How many lives have been better by having you around? What have you added to yourself as a person by just being there? Think about these things before you get into the next stage and maybe by then something would really seem to have changed at all.
