Funmilayo Odunayo Adeyemi

Let’s normalize talking about finance, investing, and money management. Most of us were never taught these things in school, by our parents, or by society. Yet one bad financial decision can set you back for years. Making money is step one. Keeping it and growing it is step two.

1. Most of the courses we are studying in Nigeria are not employable. 2. An average Nigerian sees education as a means to an end instead of an end in itself. Go to school, graduate and get a good paying job. People just care about passing exams and getting certificates. That is why we have many graduates today who cannot even defend their certificates. 3. If you enforce stricter rules and standards and get rid of sorting and other academic malpractice, we will have fewer graduates today. 4. Nobody goes to polytechnics by choice. They are mostly people who could not meet up with university requirements, and instead of staying at home to write JAMB another year, they decide to accept the admission. 5. There is absolutely nothing wrong with going to school and deciding to run a business or make do with your skills to make money. A graduate can be a welder. It is nothing to be ridiculed. I see education as an end. The most important part of education in someone’s life should not be about fetching you money. It should be about shaping your line of thought and behavioral tendencies. 6. I strongly believe that it is easier to make good grades at private universities than public ones. I really doubt any lecturer will boldly tell you that A is for God and B is for his family in any private university in Nigeria. 7. There should be a law in Nigeria forcing public office holders’ children to attend school in Nigeria. This is the easiest way to fix the dilapidated state of our schools and educational system. 8. I really believe that NECO should be scrapped. The idea of someone combining both his or her WAEC and NECO results to look for a job or admission is gibberish. WAEC should be the only recognized examination for related purposes. 9. In the university, one of the most important things you will ever come out with is not good grades, it is well established friendships. 10. Nigerian universities produce more job seekers than problem solvers. 11. Some university lecturers are academically stagnant. Year after year, they are stuck with the same knowledge, with no academic advancement of any kind. In fact, most lecturers, if you do not write exactly what and how they taught you verbatim, you are likely going to fail the course. I once tried this in school, quoted different scholars, and my lecturer got angry that I was quoting other scholars in a field where he was an authority. Thank goodness it was just a test and not an exam. I would have failed. 12. Your lecturers see you as a competitor, and most of them do not want to see you graduate with a good grade. This can be seen in their cantankerous attitudes and constant threats. 13. Postgraduate programs are poorly supervised. You can be very dull and still successfully get through with your master’s degree, as long as you have close relationships with the lecturers. This is why most people prefer to do their master’s in the same school where they did their undergraduate degree. 14. No serious company will employ graduates from open universities or people who did part time programs. 15. For every one brilliant woman you see in the university, you will see ten men. I noticed in school that the unserious students are mostly women. They act like they just came to get a degree and do not even care about the academic process, as if they have already made up their minds to get married immediately or sell hair or thrift items after school. About five or six of my female coursemates got married while we were still in school. On the other hand, guys study like their lives depend on it, and you will not blame them. 16. Prisons are far better than some university hostels. In fact, too many Nigerian universities were created without adequate infrastructure. 17. When it comes to undergraduate project writing, more than 90 percent of people plagiarize. They just look for a cooperative supervisor and submit topics from already existing works. How many people get to write fresh topics?