My university experience was quite the journey. I attended a public university, so you probably know where this is heading.
It was a system where lecturers would rather be feared than loved. It wasn’t even up to two weeks in the university when I heard all the horror stories about lecturers and their frightening personalities. For example; There was one with the highest carryover students, there was the powerful female lecturer that “forced” feminism on students(lol), there was the man that majorly favoured female students and the lecturer that didn’t give A’s.
From the start, I had set my mind towards surviving and not actually thriving. It seemed to me like the university was a game, set at the maximum difficulty and had been programmed to fail me. It didn’t take long for me to feel like I was serving a 4-year sentence.
It was a system that encouraged self-doubt. Even when I studied for an exam effectively, I accompanied it with serious prayers. Prayers, not because I was religious but because I believed invoking a divine power was necessary to actually pass some courses. Two years in and some people encouraged me to be proud of C’s I was getting. This was a life I wasn’t accustomed to before my admission into the university. All my buddies in private universities were cruising to first-class honours, while my university took pride in having a handful of first-class students.
The first time I got an F was the most amusing event. I opened the website and saw what looked like an A, I was sure it was an A too because that course was incredibly easy. I zoomed in and my A wasn’t the usual shape. What I thought was an A was really just a healthy F, the first I had seen in my life. I must have refreshed the portal a million times that day. Of course, the logical thing to do would be to demand to see my script, but I was discouraged from asking because that lecturer wasn’t one to pick a fight with. I sat in a carryover class the next year, and it ranks as one of the most embarrassing moments in my life.
“Our methods help our students in the labour market”. “We produce the most employable students”.
A statement I discovered to be false when I graduated. “We are street smart”, “we are used to hardships, that’s why we are better”. These are the lies public university graduates tell themselves to feel better about a dysfunctional system in dire need of reform. The online feud between public and private universities never seizes to amuse me. A difficult system isn’t always best. The aim should be to produce the best students who will add great value to society. This doesn’t come by purposely making the path to success difficult for them.
