examination in this country every year, but only a minute percentage of these are admitted into all of the post secondary inst.i.tutions in the country.

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Since you are among the few lucky ones who gained admission this year, out of the numerous others that registered for the examination, you deserve to be

congratulated. Congratulations. You may even be lucky to have sailed through at your first or second trial. Some have had to sit for this examination a number of times, with all of its attending pressures, but with nothing to show for it. You are one of the very fortunate ones who have changed appellation from secondary school graduates to university undergraduates. This is worth celebrating.

Whether you decide to throw a party among your friends or you just want to mark it in a small way amidst family members, you are encouraged. This is indeed a great step in your journey to becoming what you have always desired to be – a university graduate. What an achievement. You may even be luckier to be among the very few who got admitted into the school of their first choice and who

never even needed to change their course of study. What a privilege! You really may not know how may of your friends are envious of you and really wished they were as lucky as you are. You are the talk of the town, and it is okay to have your head swell.

A NEW LIFE

The university system is a lot different from the secondary school system where you are coming from. It offers you a high level of freedom, such as you were not used to before now. The first problem most freshers encounter is the ability to handle these new levels of freedom, the one given them by the school authority and the one given them by their parents at home, all due to their newly acquired status - undergraduates.

So many students abuse this freedom because of their immaturity. You will need to make up your mind to make the best use of this opportunity so that, at the end of your course on campus, like some of your mates will do, you will not end up regretting.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SECONDARY SCHOOL AND THE POST SECONDARY

SCHOOL

There are lots of differences between your secondary school and the university. Most of these differences you will need to master or cope with if you must come out of the university excellently. Some of them are interesting and easy to cope with, but majority are not that exciting and you will need some level of maturity to be able to handle them successfully.

Some of the activities you were used to that made your secondary school days bubble with life will no longer hold water. There will no longer be an Inter-house sport day, no regimented morning a.s.sembly, no daily cla.s.s register, no disciplinary actions like beating with canes, no serving of various forms of punishments, no exit permit from any housemaster before you can leave your

hostels.

These are few, compared to the major ones that may affect you seriously if not well handled. Here are some of the major differences you will need to cope with in the university:

NO DAILY ATTENDANCE

In your former school, your cla.s.s teacher comes to the cla.s.s every morning to call the cla.s.s attendance and everybody answers Present Sir/Ma. This has become history now. There is no one to check up on your cla.s.s attendance in the university. n.o.body is interested in your

life that much; everyone for himself. If you want to make it a hobby, skipping cla.s.ses can be

very interesting since n.o.body is there to monitor you.

But the consequences are destructive and hazardous to your C.G.P.A.

NO CLa.s.sROOMS

All through your secondary school days, you have been used to taking your lectures in cla.s.srooms that sits a sizeable number of students that the cla.s.s teacher can attend to one at a time. You will soon be surprised at the size of the cla.s.ses in which you will be taking lectures from now on. It is so big that it is not called cla.s.srooms but lecture theatres. Unlike your cla.s.srooms that can sit a

maximum of about fifty (50) students at a go, these lecture theatres can sit hundreds of students.

Some of the fresher's lecture theatres can sit over a thousand students at a time. This means bigger cla.s.ses, and consequently less attention. The lecturer uses a public address system when he is teaching and will not bother if two or three students (out of over one thousand)

are not concentrating in cla.s.s. He does not have enough time to attend to everyone's questions.

This makes it very easy for a student who is not disciplined enough to fail unconsciously.

DIFFICULTY IN TAKING CLa.s.s-NOTES

Note taking in secondary school was quite easy. The subject teacher dictates exactly what he wants you to write, and in some cases even awards good marks to students who have clean notes at the end of the term. In this new place, you will find it more difficult to take notes.

What will you expect with a thousand people tightly packed in a room, all of them struggling to see the lecturer's tiny handwriting on the board? So many students get discouraged and do not write any notes. This is the beginning of failure.

MUCH MORE a.s.sIGNMENT

If you ever thought there was a wicked teacher who daily loaded you with volumes of homework and a.s.signments in your secondary school, you are in for a surprise. The university system is such that you will do the majority of the work on your own outside the cla.s.s. The lecturer only gives you a lead in the lecture hall and then burden you with loads of take home a.s.signment. This excludes the loads of seminar reviews, workshop readings, lab reports, papers, and personal study that you are expected to do. You spend less time in cla.s.s but more time outside cla.s.s doing cla.s.s work. Some of these a.s.signments may be due in months, unlike your former home works that you submit the following day. If you wait till the last minute before you begin to work on such a.s.signment, you may have yourself to be blamed. Start early enough on such long time projects, and give yourself intermittent deadlines to measure your progress down the way.

BETTER OPPORTUNITIES

The campus environment will provide you with more opportunities than your former school ever provided you. There are enough extra curricular activities that will help you develop your gifts and talents. These activities will bring the best out of you such that, outside the degree you will graduate with, you will come out of school discovering more things about you than you ever thought

possible. Some of the things you will discover may be more relevant to your future than your chosen course of study. You will do yourself a lot of good if you take advantage

of every opportunity available on your campus to develop such latent potentials.

MORE FREEDOMS

The day you gained admission into the university can pa.s.s for your independent day. Before now, you needed permission from your parents to go anywhere. But now, the shackle has been broken. There is n.o.body to give you any deadline again. You wake up whenever you want, sleep whenever you want, you choose to attend cla.s.s if you want, study if you wish and attend parties all day if

you so desire.

You are in total charge and control of your life, and you live it the best way you think right until the next holiday when you resume back home in your mother's confine. Most students always abuse these privileges since they have never been exposed to this level of uncultured freedom before. They throw all cautions to the wind and live their life in such a way that they later live to regret it.

MORE RESPONSIBILITIES

Your parents may not remember to tell you this: YOU JUST BECAME AN ADULT OVERNIGHT. Aside all of the academic pressures, you are now responsible for your life. The things your parents used to do for you before (and the ones your cook, maid, driver does for you) are now your sole responsibility.

Things like feeding, laundry, shopping, accommodation, house cleaning and some payment of bills are now left for you to sort out from your meager pocket money. You will need a lot of discipline and adjustment to live a very stress-less life on campus. A budget will help you take charge of your finances while a 24 hour timetable will help you prioritize and take charge of your life.

MORE CHALLENGES

All you need to pa.s.s in your secondary school was just to memorize definitions and pour it out to your teacher word for word. The university will demand much more from you. Most of your lecturers and examiners will hardly ask you verbatim what they taught you in the cla.s.sroom.

Your examinations will be more of applications of topics treated. This will require a better use of your brain power, will take more of your time and more concentration during lecture periods.

MORE ELECTIVES

While in your former school you had a fixed number of subjects you could offer, in the university, you choose your course. Aside the core courses for your chosen major, you will have more opportunity for electives. Be careful to choose electives that will benefit your life in

some ways in the nearest future.