WINNING WISDOM FOR CAMPUS FRESHERS

The euphoria of getting admission into campus is usually overwhelming especially in our society where there is limited number of schools for the teeming populations. However, it’s unfortunate that this joy turns to sorrow half way into many students’ sojourn on campus. In my opinion, it’s largely due to deficiency of vital nuggets that makes for fulfilling sojourn on campus. That’s why I want to serve you, a fresher or like they say in my school, “Jambito”, ten winning wisdom for fulfilling journey on campus.

ADJUST TO THE NEW WORLD

The university is a world different from your secondary school or even your house. It has a number of peculiarities and special attributes that contrast it with the wider world and one of the first and most important thing you MUST do to have a fulfilling journey on campus is to adjust totally to the new world. Believe me, the earlier you do it the better for you. You may have lived in your father’s house until now that you are released to come to school to study and while you were at home, a house maid does virtually everything for you and nobody dare talk to you anyhow. But here on campus, you have to do virtually everything for yourself and if you have (and you will most likely have) roommates that are ill-mannered, you will be talked to anyhow. Sometimes, when I see freshets reacting to lashing from fellow student or even lecturers they say, “My parents don’t talk to me that way.” Please know that you need to adjust to being talked to anyhow. My experience is that those talking make you stronger and a better person; though I’m not in support of the lifestyle.

In this new world you are more on your own than you are with even your roommates. So, you must adjust to be on your own and not depend on people for your sustenance and success in school. Am I saying that you should be on your own and not give a damn to what the next person is doing? Not at all! What I am saying is that you should not get so attached to anybody and dependent on them for your survival. You must adjust to survive on campus even if everybody chose to be against you. This survival mindset keeps you pushing forward when you come to point when everybody is so busy that they don’t have time for you.

There are many things I would want to say about this but I’m constrained by space but the main point I’m making is that campus is a new world and you must adjust yourself to live in this world very early so as to save yourself from regrets of late or even no adjustment. Note adjustment doesn’t to mean changing to evil lifestyle that is common on campuses. It means making changes that will enable you scale through different hurdles on campus.

DEFINE YOUR MISSION AND PURSUE IT

One of the things you must do as soon as you arrive into this new world is to define your mission. I have found out that on campus, there are many people on campus with diverse missions. You may have arrived on campus as a natural progression as a student but you must come to point when sit down with yourself and define exactly why you are in school.

Listen, if you don’t do this early enough, you will be swayed by every wind of lifestyle from roommates and classmates. Defining your mission is a first step to setting your priority right which is a step towards having a fulfilling sojourn on campus. As you define your mission, please set out in its pursuit with everything in you. Make sacrifice where necessary. Commit yourself wholly to it. If you are on campus without a clearly defined mission, you will always misplace your priority and get carried away by diverse kinds of life on campus. However, defining your mission early helps you see where you are going and compel you to channel your energy and every resource at your disposal towards that end.

ASSOCIATE WISELY

One of the indispensable facts about life is association. However, when it’s not done wisely and properly, it becomes destructive. That’s why you must be careful to ensure that you associate wisely in your stay on campus.  Your association extends to your fellow human beings and organizations. Look for associations that you will add value to and possibly give to you.

I was in a campus fellowship in school and it paid me off greatly. The fellowship I joined have good platform where I was refined in character and given opportunity to put my skills and talent to use. As a matter of fact, the discipline I got being an executive member of the fellowship is still paying off today. I associated with very few people because I was careful to ensure that I don’t get myself entangled with people who will weigh me down however, the few friends I have proved to be very useful in my life and they also thank me for what I did in their lives. My personal philosophy of associating is that I must be giving or receiving something in my associations; otherwise, the association is not necessary.

LEARNING AND (GP) GRADE POINT

An average fresher on campus is welcomed with talks on GP and how to get a high one. Most of them must have been sent to school by their parents and advised to go get good grades that will enable them get a well-paying job. Believe me, I believe that your grade is important; at least your parents need it as a source of encouragement. It gives them the sense that they are not wasting their money training you in school. However, you must be careful to understand that the most important reason to go to school is not to get grade but to learn.

You must have cheated yourself big time if you go through school and get the best GP yet with very little learning. By the way, I have seen many students who have high GP but can hardly answer intelligent question on the course they got an A in. Usually, what happens is that these folks just crammed their notes and because many lecturers expect their students to “give me as I give you” they scale through with big grade.

If you are planning to leave school and practice in your field of study yet read to just pass and get by, you are cheating yourself. As a matter of fact, you will earn yourself disgrace in the labour market. So, while you go about the pursuit of good GP, which is important, ensure that you are also going after in-depth knowledge of your courses. See, your high GP can only open door for you to perform but’ it’s what you know and can do that will catapult you to the top in your field.

BEWARE OF DEATH TRAPS ON CAMPUS

Many death traps exist on campus but don’t really look like them; that accounts for why many freshers are trapped in them  before they could even realize it. Death traps on campus are not necessarily traps that will snuff life out of you but are traps that may either take your own life or the life of your mission on campus or  even your GP. One of such death traps is your associates. I have talked about this earlier. There are people you will associate on campus and that will be automatic burial of your academic performance. Listen, there are people you must avoid on camps; some of them are students who are in school just to pass time while waiting for their dream course. Another set is totally unserious students; they are called non-academic student. Also, students who don’t place premium on their time should not also be your best friend as they will waste your time and eventually, put to death your mission on campus. Please, I will tell you more on this in the subsequent edition of Campus Mentor. Other death traps are placed on campus. Night clubs and drinking joints on campus is a very dangerous death trap; so, stay away from there. Some eateries on campus were set up to sap you of your money; if you don’t have self-control you will dig your financial grave going there. If you parents manage to send you to school, take small pity on them and don’t put your money to wasteful spending. You don’t have to show off to anybody. Even if you have excess money, put it to more profitable use like buying books to read, paying for training and even helping fellow students who are indigent. Beware of your associates and the places you go and you will be keeping yourself far from death traps on campus.

COEXISTING WITH YOUR ROOMMATES

Your roommates are not your brothers but students like you who are in school with you though your mission may vary. You will stay with them for at least academic year. Apart from your roommates, you have classmates and fellowship or club mates. You must learn to live with them peacefully. From my experience in school, I have come to understand those roommates are for my good in finally.  Good roommates make you feel good and enjoy school; bad roommates make you develop tolerance and patience and roommates that choose to be on the own make you live independent of people. In all, roommates are for your good. Everybody in your fellowship, room or even class cannot be your friend but you should endeavour to live with them in peace. There are many things involved in achieving peaceful existence with your roommates that I can’t really delve into in this article but suffice is to say that you must be able to tolerate people’s faults. After all you also have your own faults. Don’t get too close to people until you have understood their lifestyle and mindset. HEALTH IS WEALTH

Many students in their quest for academic excellence and high GP endanger their health. Many students take drugs to keep awake and read; yet they do not realize the damage they are doing to their health. See, God designed your body to work in certain fashion and your attempt to alter it may be detrimental to your life and sound health. As a student, you must and actually need to work hard. You need to burn the midnight oil but be careful to ensure you don’t do it at the expense of your health. Many people postulate that a serious student should sleep only four hours daily.  I used to do that except that I realized that it has side effect on my health and so stopped and begin to obey the word of God, “It’s vain to rise up early and go to bed late; eating the bread of sorrow”. You know what? I have come to understand that if you have good rest and sleep( which is around five to six hours) and concentrate to read or even write you will be more effective that the one who stresses and strains his body system and spend longer hours reading. Apart from having good rest, be careful to ensure that you eat healthy. My BSc project was on instant noodles and that lead me to research on foods. I found out that most fast foods, which is common among students are junks. That’s they have very low nutritional value; though tasty. Please for your health, don’t make them your number one food. Eat them rarely. Eat foods that have high nutritional value. Also, be careful, as much as you can, not to go eateries where foods are poorly just because they are cheap. You might be endangering your health doing so.

YOUR MONEY

Money is indispensable in your academic pursuits and can also ruin it if you do not learn how to manage it very well. Please be careful to manage it well; even if you have it in great abundance. Also, when you have it in little measure, don’t even be discouraged and wonder how you are going to survive with little amount of money. Money is not everything. Don’t be extravagant in your spending. Don’t spend your money to impress anybody. Spend your money based on need and make a scale of preference. If you don’t have sponsor, see any need you can meet in your environment which if God blesses you will be a channel of financial supply to you.

My sister, you don’t need to be a part-time harlot because of lack. It is no longer news that many girls on campus thinks they are sharp and because they can entice many men who take them out for sex and exchange for some money. Unfortunately, they don’t realize that they are wasting their time and future. Believe me; they are not sharp but shameless. When you see them, don’t envy them at all. They are not really enjoying; they are busy sowing seeds for failure in life. If you are one of them, you have hope of bright future only in repentance and submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Our actions as youths are seeds for our future; be careful to sow wisely!

Pray to God for supplies and look around to see what you can do with your hands. Please, if you have money in abundance, help fellow students who barely survive. See, it doesn’t make sense to live large when your roommate or brother in fellowship is living very lean. Help as much as you can not “because you never know tomorrow” but because of love for your neighbor.

CAMPUS LOVE; TOO EARLY!

There is something incorporated in you and I at creation that makes us feel good to be loved; especially by the opposite sex. However, there is time and season for every activity on the earth; including time for falling in love. Academic pursuit is very tasking and demanding on your emotion that dispensing your emotional energy on love amount can  to ghastly accident in your sojourn on campus. That’s why I believe that as fresher being in love now is rather too early. If you must be in love on campus, I strongly suggest that you leave it till your penultimate year; a time that you must have understood the school well enough to balance love emotion and academic emotion. Meanwhile, you could have just friends without emotional attachment. One of the things I have been enjoying in not being in love is distraction free and maximum concentration on my future. I am still laying foundation and equipping for my future and until am done with that, love has got to wait.

CONNECT TO THE SUPERNATURAL

You must have heard that life is more spiritual than physical; however, I have found this truth to be more real the world called Campus. I understood that you are very brilliant and even was the best graduating in your school. In fact, you have the best JAMB score in your department. But those CANNOT guarantee that you have a fulfilling sojourn on campus. That’s why I bring you this message: connect to the supernatural. There are forces that will work against your efforts and they manifest in diverse ways. Also, there are times you will need a supernatural power to work on your behalf when you have done your best and it seems insufficient. If you are really connected, you will be able to activate them to work on your behalf. There are many supernatural powers people connect to but the one I prescribe is the one from God. Please, know that connecting to the supernatural is not joining a fellowship, even though, that may be helpful in connecting to the supernatural. I’m talking amount having a personal relationship with God. The starting point of doing this is establishing a good relationship with God through Jesus Christ by believing in Jesus Christ and repentance from sin.

My friend, I wish you a fulfilling sojourn on campus. Meanwhile, keep a date with me on the Fresher’s Mentor as I share with you more insight for your sojourn on campus every week on wwwbrojid.com. Until next week, May God continue to help you in your sojourn on campus.