Journey to America (Part 1)

My journey to the America Part 1

This story is quite long as I plan 
to start from the very beginning. 
For that reason, I’ll be breaking it
 into several parts and posting on 
different days. Here goes.

I decided I wanted to study Chemical 
Engineering when I was in S.S.3 
because further-maths and chemistry 
were my favorite subjects. 
However, my parents convinced me to 
study Electrical/Electronics Engineering 
instead because it was a much broader 
field with a myriad of job opportunities, 
unlike Chemical Engineering that was 
a narrow field. 
I was quite the stubborn goat who didn’t 
like to be told what to do, but on this 
occasion, I’ll forever be grateful I listened 
to them and changed my course of study.
Both of my parents attended UNILAG 
and my elder sister was studying at 
UNILAG at the time so naturally, I too was 
going to study at UNILAG. But, some of 
my mum’s lecturer friends at UNILAG 
advised her to send me to the America to 
study instead because Nigeria did not 
have the facilities to properly teach 
Engineering courses. 
When my mum told me this, I refused 
and insisted I was going to go to 
UNILAG instead. 
My mother told me she was going to 
pay for the TOEFL exam, I told her I 
wasn’t going to write the exam and 
her money would waste. 
Why did I refuse to go you may ask? 
Thank you very much for that question. 
It was a very stupid reason actually. 
All those high school movies I had 
watched about the new girl in school 
being bullied, not fitting in and always 
being sad convinced me that was 
going to be my story if I schooled in 
the America. 
Obviously, I didn’t tell anyone this 
reason I just vehemently refused to 
even consider schooling abroad.
However, UNILAG wasn’t what I expected 
it to be AT ALL. 
My first semester was especially horrible. 
I hardly went to class, gained a lot of weight, 
was bullied by my bunkmate and her friends 
and spent a huge portion of my time crying. 
The only person I ever told this story to 
was a friend in my class during a 10-hour 
conversation we had in my 2nd semester  
I went back and told my parents that I 
was ready to school in the America because 
UNILAG wasn’t working out but my father 
said he had already paid diploma fees and 
I should finish up in UNILAG after which 
I’d go to America for my masters. 
Sometimes I wish I fought this decision 
but perhaps undergrad in the US wasn’t 
meant to be.
It was in my 400 level I decided I was 
going to travel to the US for my masters 
and the reason for this again was a very 
foolish one. 
My dad had such high expectations of 
me that had rubbed off on me. 
He believed I would finish with a first 
class but by 400 level, I knew that 
wasn’t going to happen. But I believed 
the university system not I was to blame 
for this.
 I don’t know about other people, but I 
didn’t learn anything in my 5 years at 
UNILAG. 
Most of our elect/elect teachers were 
just tyrants. 
Some failed to show up in class, one 
particular one would be whispering while 
dictating notes and you dared not 
interrupt him, the ones that showed 
up just came to fulfill all righteousness 
and you were lucky if they gave notes. 
You couldn’t even ask questions in class. 
I went to Federal Government Girls 
College Shagamu and I had competent 
teachers who cared there. 
Even when you had incompetent teachers, 
you had good, well-written textbooks 
to fall back on. 
We didn’t have the required reading 
materials in my class. 
In fact, the lecturers never recommended 
any textbooks - I don’t know if it was 
their personal desire to see us fail. 
Some sold poorly written handouts that 
barely made sense. And when exams 
came, you would just be wondering 
where they got the questions from as 
the exams most times bore no resemblance 
to what they taught in class. 
I was quite the lone-ranger in school so 
I didn’t find out until it was too late that 
most lecturers repeated the same exam 
questions year after year so if you had 
access to past questions and were 
able to cram the solutions to them,  
you were most likely to pass. 
By then, I was already disillusioned with 
the system and offended they denied 
me my first class birthright. And so I 
was going to go do my masters in America, 
finish with a first-class and prove to 
myself and the world that indeed I 
was first class material. 
I kid you not, this was the singular motive 
behind my wanting to do my masters 
in America. 
Foolishness was really in my heart.
To be continued...

Firecracker Toyeen