Clocking University Myths

I’ll be telling a white lie if I say I remembered my convictions before uni. So I did what any college student does: I asked my friends.

They had pretty interesting things to say. Some they had in common, some unique to themselves. I’ll start with the more serious ones, then talk about the comical and more relatable ones later.

First, Freedom:

Goodness imagined university would give him the freedom to do literally anything. Secondary school was restrictive, but university was supposed to be a place without walls. You could ditch classes without consequences. But oh boy, was he wrong?

Not only did class attendance come with its own marks, there was little to zero deviation out of the school-home-church cycle. While we may not be wearing uniforms or need a bell to know when it’s the next class, it’s still quite the usual routine.

Then Exams:

The idea that university has a much bigger curriculum made it easy to assume we’d need to study way more than we did in secondary school.

But over a couple of months (or semesters), we’ve come to realise we really didn’t need to study every day to get good grades. Okay, maybe it’s different for first-class students (can’t relate), but studying a week before exams or even just a couple of days is good enough. Ask anyone.

Then there was the fear of carry-overs and how they were supposedly easy to get, how lecturers kept the A grades to themselves. But uni is pretty chill.

Don’t let me get started on Cultism:

It’s supposed to be rampant in universities. Looking at the wrong person the wrong way would get you killed or, worse still, initiated. But it’s different. Different in FUTA, at least. It’s not scary like in the movies or the rumours.

The most common thing my friends mentioned was the girls. My male friends, at least. They’d imagined themselves having girlfriends, yet every single one of them is still single in their final year. It’s easier to get an A in Statistics.

Girlfriends and parties, too. Watching movies sold us the dream of endless frat parties and sororities. While I did go home with someone at the one party I attended, it wasn’t quite what you’d expect.

After the talk about girlfriends, the second most popular conviction they had was making it big in their fields. Especially those who have already dipped into a niche before admission. Music, videography, programming.

Mayowa thought by now he’d have so many companies fighting to have him, but he only knows how to use Claude code… for now. Goodness and Gift thought they’d have their cars. Ivy, a star musician (I think he is, though). But uni is not as flexible as they imagined it to be. The good thing, though, is they now view this as their starting point.

Thanks for reading, and if you think there is something I missed out, you can drop it in the comment or reply to the subscription email.