As with the last blog, please take time to think about what differences you have noticed between the academic environment here at Essex University at the environment of the school or college etc. where you have just come from. Please plan your thoughts maybe first writing in Word so you can check you spelling, grammar, punctuation, style etc. before posting. As usual refrain from insulting or offensive language. I will have to remove it and it may constitute an academic offence.
Well in Nigeria where I come from education as a whole is extremely different in so many ways, the timetable, lecture time , the way the lectures are taught and some other reasons. Even though I had a really short stay in the university while preparing for an examination, I heard of lots of stories from friends who are still in the university and those already through, besides the system in which education is practiced in junior, high school, and colleges is not so different from that practiced in the university except more and advanced lectures and a little other stuffs.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all the accommodation here is in much better shape than most you can find in Nigeria ,and it could be said to be paradise compared to the ones in my country, the timetable allows me enough time to rest and relax after each class, apart from that lectures start from 9:00am everyday and by 6:00pm we are done, while in Nigeria some lectures would start as early as 7:00pm (and could go on for hours at a stretch)and most times students would not be done till 8:00pm in the evenings. I had this experience even when I was doing my A levels I always had a physics class by 7:00am on Saturdays and it would go on till 2:00pm in the afternoon ,different teachers ,different topics, all at once it was no wonder we all found it difficult to assimilate anything been taught. Even the lecturers are quite helpful because back in Nigeria there’s nothing like tutorials, the lectures are more of theory even for those reading courses that are supposed to have lots of practicals, and even when some of these lecturers are approached for tutorials they would ask for tips or students would be asked to pay a huge sum of money just for the lecturer to go through what he has taught ,they go on strike for so long sometimes almost a year though some group of people would say it is not their fault it is the government for not paying them well and even the little they pay them it is not constant ,like they(government)t would always owe them for months , I would say whosoever’s fault it is, their issues ,frustrations or problems should not be taken out on the students.
There is a very good culture the educational system in my country teaches and that is hardwork the teacher’s ,or would I say the teacher’s I have had made me work hard, like really hard for my marks, even though back then and in the real sense they were being too harsh. There was this particular maths teacher I had in my first year in high school, He was so mean like if he says you would fail maths there was no two ways about it you would fail even if you were his star student and then he would tell you to pay for tutorials and usually it is only the weak students that have tutorials and when you pay you do not even need to attend the classes your passing maths is already sure and that was so terrible. He finally left at the end of the day before I was done with high school. He was mean I agree but He made me grow a liking for the subject and also taught me that maths was not so difficult ,I just needed to read and practice more. Another aspect was attendance ,missing classes was a huge deal as you could get suspension or some other form of punishment but here it’s left for you to decide if you want to attend classes or not and I understand it’s all about not imposing rules on people. Well I guess it just boils down to the fact that everyone has his or her way of doing stuffs, as it is always said there are a million and one ways to kill a cat. A million and one ways to make students learn.