When I was in high school, all I wanted to do was attend a tertiary institution, study like my life depended on it, graduate with good grades, and I would automatically get “an office” job after. Oh, how delusional I was.
The first shocker came when the external body in charge of our final exams (WAEC) withheld my high school result. I didn’t cry. Rather, I was optimistically waiting for them to release it, and I would further with my plans in mind. Well, they did release it, but that was after I registered in another school to take another exam.
It was supposedly going as planned, but my jamb score jammed me and I scored less than the required marks for a university, but I went ahead into a polytechnic, graduated the best, and hoped that I would be retained. Oh well, I was told, “go to the university and come back when I was done. A space will be available for me by the time I returned.”
I went ahead to the university, led a straight-line life, (from my house to school, and from school back to house), however, on some days, my life was a triangle whenever I decided to use the library, but mostly, it was a straight line because I was gunning for the grade.
The shocker first came in 200 level when I was met with some heavy challenges with some lecturers who intended to spoil my results, but that was “just a part of life”, I thought. I fixed those and furthered into making sure nothing shook my grade because that was what would get me the job as a junior lecturer back at the polytechnic I graduated from.
Things were going my way until 500 level when the pandemic kicked in, and my straight line maintained a full-stop for a long time, longer than I had imagined. Everything came to a halt. No books, no school, no skill, no money, nothing. It felt like I was empty inside. The six months stay home pandemic period taught me everything school hadn’t taught me.
It felt like I was a graduate without a certificate yet, and I had to battle for my life. I had to battle for survival. It was at that time I realized that school would teach you just what you need to survive in your studies. Whatever you choose to do outside school to survive is solely dependent on you as an individual mixing the skills you have, leveraging the community of friends you have, and thinking beyond the four walls of the school.
I got started first, learning how to write, learned how to snap and edit pictures on mobile, learned mobile videography, and even started a mini business of chinchin and coconut candy sales. I wanted to dive into data analytics at the time, but I didn’t have money to buy a laptop, nor did I have a place to get the money from nor who to ask, so I focused on what I could learn at the time.
I didn’t learn how to make money from writing until 2022/2023 with academic writing. I’ve graduated since 2021 and it’s 2025, but I do not have “an office job” yet. However, I make money with my storytelling skills, provide voice-over services, and sometimes, I get mobile videography jobs, and I’m learning data analytics as I go. I stopped my mini business in 2022 because my health failed, so I couldn’t keep up.
School will teach you everything you need to survive in school, however, outside, survival is an entirely different ball game.
Images are mine.