University life in Nigeria doesn’t ease you in; it throws you into the deep end and watches to see if you’ll sink.

 I remember my first week on campus, dreams loud in my head, pockets almost silent. The lectures were crowded, the hostels were cramped, and the timetable changed like it had a mind of its own. 

Power supply was a suggestion, not a promise. Some nights, we read with phone flashlights, praying our batteries would last longer than our fears.

The struggles piled up quickly. ASUU strikes that paused our lives without warning, lecturers who rushed a semester into weeks, transport fares that rose faster than our allowances, and days when hunger became a familiar classmate.

 I watched brilliant friends defer semesters because fees couldn’t be raised in time. I saw others hawk goods after lectures, not because they wanted extra money, but because survival demanded it. Yet every morning, we still showed up, tired, frustrated, but stubbornly hopeful.

What keeps us going is more than ambition; it’s resilience forged by sacrifice. We carry our parents’ prayers, our sleepless nights, and the quiet promise we made to ourselves that this struggle will not be in vain. 

We keep going because quitting would make the pain meaningless. So we endure. We adapt. We rise. Because in Nigeria, surviving university is not just about earning a degree, it’s about proving that no matter how hard the road gets, we are strong enough to walk it to the end. 💪🏽🎓