University 101
The Real University Manual Nobody Gave You
As I don finish university now, advise go full my mouth. Of course, everything I’m about to say comes with the benefit of hindsight — and hindsight is 20/20. Anyways.
Most of us are never given a proper manual to survive university. Maybe we were told not to join bad gang, definitely to read our books. But no one ever gives you the actual manual.
You might get a welcome address — maybe by the Vice Chancellor, probably by a student representative. You’d get a department handbook full of rules you’ll never even get a chance to break. You’d interact with a senior or two who won’t put you on to the real game. You’d have to learn on the job.
Well, I’m here to save you. Let me present you with the manual. The real one. Not the official one. Think of me as your older sibling, your cousin, and that one senior in 600 level who is sitting somewhere regretting their life choices.
Read carefully. Argue with it if you want. But don’t say you were not warned.
I’ve compiled 25 lines of advice. Some will save your CGPA. Some will save your money. Some will save your dignity and your steeze. All of them are free — which is more than can be said for most things university will charge you for.
1. Your hostel friends and your class friends must be two different species.
This is sacred law. It is foundational wisdom. It is the basis of university life. If you mess this up at the start, there is danger.
Your hostel people will help you rewind. They’ll let you play FIFA and GTA until 2am. They’re the ones who will make food for you when you’re dying. They’ll charge your power bank while you sleep. But these same people will have no boundaries — they will use your charger, your water, sometimes even your gas. You will share clothes, laughs, and tears.
Whatever you do, do not let this group overlap with the people who will see you dressed up for a presentation — the people who form your professional network and help boost your grades. You are at liberty to select your friends even if the school randomly assigns your roommates.
When these two worlds collide, drama is the only survivor. The people who know when you woke up bare-faced should not be the same people you depend on for a group project. Protect your reputation in every room you enter.
2. Schedule your time in a way that suits you — not anyone else.
When I was in uni, I was relaxed for the first 8 weeks of every semester. But when week 9 hit, I promise you no one could see me. I’d be reading like my life depended on it — because it did. I knew I could pull through in those final 3 weeks before exams.
Some people cannot pull through like that. So if you saw me watching Modern Family or Hunter x Hunter in the middle of semester and you followed me, guess who would fail? Not me.
Schedule yourself in a way that favors your brain. Some people are morning warriors. Some come alive at midnight. Figure out what works for you. Know yourself and protect your energy.
3. Don’t skip the lectures you shouldn’t skip — so you can skip the ones you need to.
If you’re skipping UNI 101 in the first week of semester, you’re already in trouble.
There is a strategy to this lifestyle. There is a tactical economy to lecture attendance and you need to understand it early. Many of my coursemates carried over a math course in 100 level because of attendance issues — they didn’t understand the game early enough, and the game failed them.
Some lecturers don’t mark attendance but will teach you things in class that you won’t find in any slide. Some lectures are a complete waste of the two hours and the clothes worn for a class that will be posted online anyway. Learn which is which.
me everyday before i go to class
Build your attendance credit carefully in all the right places — so that when you absolutely need to escape, whether for a personal break, an interview, or 72 hours of missed sleep, your grade doesn’t catch a stray.
4. Find utility people — and become a utility person.
When I started uni, I made loads of friends. The first girl I spoke to in school became a note-exchange relationship. Every department has people who just seem to know things. Who has the past questions? Who has the course rep’s number? Who knows what works and what doesn’t? Find these people and befriend them.
But do not be a parasite.
As you collect from people, make sure you are giving at the same level — or people will flag you. The best thing to do while building a network is to be a valuable node in it. Can you type a project in one night? Can you link people together? Can you run a tutorial? Can you provide a service nobody else offers? Make that known.
University runs on informal economies of favors and knowledge. Be the best player in that game.
5. Whatever happens, get at least 20 in your CGPA continuous assessment.
I cannot stress this enough. You cannot fail a course you score 20/30 in — unless you’re actively trying to fail.
The people who coast through CA thinking they’ll make it in exams are the same people who end up failing courses they have no business failing. My one carryover in uni was in MTH 201, a course I don’t think I scored more than 5/30 in continuous assessment. I made it out eventually — at the cost of my mental health. Don’t be like me.
my face when i saw question 1 of that CA in 200 level
Show up to class. Study for that test. Score that grade. It may seem insignificant, but that fraction of effort will save your life.
6. Never, ever carry over a course. Sacrifice what must be sacrificed.
A carryover is not just an academic setback — it is a haunting. Your reputation takes a hit. Your self-worth drops. A failed course follows you into a new session, disrupts your timetable, pulls down your CGPA across multiple years, and if you’re not careful, will extend a 4-year degree into something much longer.
I promise you, you do not want to be in a department watching fresh-faced new students come in while you’re still trying to pass a second-year course.
me whenever i go to 200 level classes while being in 300 level
Whatever it takes — study groups with people you dislike, tutorials when someone is calling you, staying up at night — handle your courses before they handle you. This should not be optional.
7. Know your lecturers, and make sure they know you.
I’m not saying go and be a professional sycophant. Don’t be anyone’s lap dog.
What I’m saying is: show up enough to lodge yourself in their memory. Attend their classes. Ask a question or two during the semester. I know from personal experience that when it came to final year, I’m certain I underperformed in a course — but the lecturers knew my name. They wanted to see me graduate. And so I did.
Beyond that, when it’s time for recommendations, research supervision, or any situation where a human judgment call is being made, you want to already exist in their mind as a person — not as a blur in a sea of 300 students. Academic visibility is its own skill. Learn it.
8. Don’t mix money into your friendships.
For your own sanity, don’t let money come between you and anyone you meet in school. Keep your friendships clean of financial entanglement wherever possible.
Volunteer your time. Share your notes. Cook extra rice. It doesn’t matter. But the moment money enters a casual relationship, the entire dynamic shifts — and it rarely shifts back. Handle your finances cleanly and separately.
9. Make friends. Introvert life will not carry you through this.
We respect the introverts. We see you.
But get the fuck out of your shell.
University — and the life it’s preparing you for — is not a solo game. The information you need, the opportunities you should be hearing about, the person whose uncle is hiring for a role you’re qualified for — all of that lives outside, and it’s accessed through human connection.
I’m not saying become a social butterfly. Don’t enter every gathering or make too much noise. Just leave that shell enough to know people’s names and build a small, solid circle you can grow with. Isolation in university is expensive. The cost is the network that would have invested in you.
10. Don’t make too much noise.
Don’t talk too much. Unnecessary opinions in class create enemies. Watch people. Observe actions. Think long before you speak in any public space — and when you do speak, make sure it is something worth saying. There is quiet social power in that.
11. Have a life outside of class.
Your department will try to become your entire world. Do not let it.
The cross-pollination of ideas and friendships is where the most interesting growth happens. If the only people you know are your coursemates and your entire identity is defined by your books, you will graduate having missed the best parts of university.
Also — departments are small. Gossip travels fast. You need an escape route. You need somewhere to breathe.
12. Do not enter a relationship in 100 level.
I know, bro. I know. I promise you I understand. That girl you locked eyes with during orientation was the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen. The angle you saw her from, the sunlight — it was perfect. You made eye contact in the queue and got flutters. I have been there.
But wait first.
You do not know yourself well enough yet. You don’t know your schedule. You don’t know what you’ll need from a person in this environment. And you certainly don’t know her. Don’t make a major emotional investment with someone who is also completely disoriented, in a high-stakes moment neither of you is ready for.
how you should be moving
And more importantly — do not date your coursemate in 100, 200, or 300 level. Wait until final year, after project defense, before you take action. Because if you mess it up with this person, you will see them every day for four more years. And the gods of randomization will always put you two in the same group. You need these people. Don’t let the love of a fine face ruin your academic peace.
13. Learn how to cook.
I don’t need to explain. If you like, die.
14. Don’t succumb to financial peer pressure.
The group wants to eat out. You go carry your last 5k and spend 3,500 on shawarma. Your guys want to go to the cinema, so you borrow 2k to complete the ticket. You’re managing an iPhone 11, but your friends bully you into going hungry to buy an iPhone 15 you cannot afford.
If you own a phone where a cracked screen would give you a panic attack, consider selling it.
You can admire your friends and want what they have — but you need to understand that they are not you, and their parents are not your parents. Live within your means. We have heard too many stories of people chasing a social image and suffering for it. Do not become one of those stories.
15. Pray for good roommates — and be a good roommate.
You cannot always choose who you live with. But you can control the kind of person you are to live with. Do you do your dishes? Do you make your bed? Do you play music loud at 2am? Do your friends turn the room into a noise hall?
Your answers to these questions will make or break your university experience in ways you cannot fully predict. Your roommate can give you the best recommendation — and the worst review.
Be the kind of roommate you would want to have.
16. Don’t be careless with your things.
Yes, things get stolen. But a lot of things that are “stolen” were first misplaced and then picked up by someone who needed them more than you did.
Things will be lost at parties. They’ll disappear when you’re exhausted and not paying attention. Your belongings exist in a shared space with hundreds of people. Think: secure lockers, organized storage, trusted company.
Replacing things costs money you’ve already allocated elsewhere. Don’t spend money learning a lesson you could have learned for free.
17. Maintain good relationships with low-level staff.
The people who clean your hostel. The ones who run the canteen. The wardens, matrons, security guards, and janitors. These small relationships that seem unimportant will pay enormous dividends in ways you won’t notice until the day you desperately need them — the day you forget your ID card, or your ATM card while heading to the shop.
Just be a good person. The returns will come back to you in multiples.
18. Your house is not a community center.
If you live off campus, you made that move for freedom and privacy. That’s wonderful — until your friends want to turn your place into a pub.
this should not be your house
Set boundaries early. Some of my friends who live off campus are, frankly, very direct people who know how to tell you to leave when they don’t want company. And you know what? It worked. They maintained their peace and their space. It was an independence-driven mindset, and it served them very well.
19. Budget for food and survival — not aesthetics.
If you’re on an allowance, that money is meant to sustain you as efficiently as possible, with a small window for a luxury here and there. As long as your essentials aren’t covered, don’t even think about the extras.
If you collect 100k in a month and spend 90k in the first two weeks — you are beyond cooked.
20. Don’t borrow money carelessly — and don’t beg stupidly.
Yes, there will be moments where you need help urgently. That is a last resort, not a financial strategy.
Your reputation as someone who repays — or doesn’t — will follow you through your entire time in school. Once you start burning that bridge, distance builds between you and the people who could have helped you.
Begging stupidly means asking things of people you haven’t earned access to and from people who owe you nothing. It reads as entitlement. No one wants to befriend an entitled person.
You are building your reputation every single day you spend in that school. Guard that process like it is your most valuable asset. Because it is.
21. Be useful for something.
“What can you do for me?” — this is a question people ask every time they interact with you, even if they never say it out loud. And it has nothing to do with money.
Can you make people laugh? Can you get people novels? I know someone whose whole value in the group was providing us with TV shows — we called him our offline Netflix. Another guy had a laptop where we could always watch football.
Usefulness can be intellectual, social, creative — it doesn’t matter. University is a low-stakes environment where you can build value. Use it.
22. Find a side hustle.
I write this with a stake through my chest. I spent my entire university career waiting for the weekly cheque. That is not a sustainable strategy.
Some weeks your parents will delay. Some months it will just be tight. A small, honest income will completely change your relationship with money in ways that waiting for the next credit alert never will. Sell things. Offer a service. Teach what you know for a fee. Run an errand worth monetizing.
me when the money starts coming in
You’ll build skills, feel independent, and the experiences will be worth far more than any stress that comes with them.
23. Don’t do anything that will make you lie to your parents for money.
This one is sensitive, but we need to talk about it. Once you start, it will not stop. You’ll need to maintain the lie to keep up the lifestyle. And anything you’re doing that you can’t tell your parents about is probably something you shouldn’t be doing.
There is something about earning your parents’ trust that has to be built over time. These kinds of choices corrode that process from the inside.
24. Start preparing for life after university from 200 level.
Those who fail to prepare are preparing to fail — classic quote, very true.
If you allow yourself to reach final year without preparation, there will be panic. I’m writing this from a place of lived pain, because I was scrambling for internships at the end of mine. The time you have in 200 and 300 level is meant to be used to build a CV, learn an extra skill, and start building something — anything.
how prepared you should be for post graduate life. stay strapped my nigga
Without these things, you will leave university with a degree that puts you at a structural disadvantage against those who spent their early years quietly stacking experiences. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You just need to start moving.
I am genuinely regretting not starting earlier. Alhamdulillah for where I am, still.
25. Don’t start your final year project in final year.
You’ll probably ignore this one. But you’ll tell me later.
A 6-unit final year project is not a one-semester task. You cannot complete it properly in a 12-week period without losing your sanity. What you need to do is structure your topic, datasets, and frameworks from at least 300 level — so that when your mates are panicking before defense, you’re just calmly revising.
your supervisor looking at you start final year project in 2nd semester of 400 level
Start early. Not tomorrow — that’s a lie we all tell ourselves.
Start today. Now.
Anywayssssss.
Uni will be hard, and it will be easy in patches. It will be wonderful and horrible in equal parts. You will make mistakes that will make you want to bury yourself. You will also make decisions that will make you feel like a genius.
Take both with grace. It is just part of the journey.
The goal is to arrive at graduation with all your scars and decisions worn on your shoulders with pride. You will have spent years learning things about a field of your choice, about yourself, about people and society, and about how to function in a world that does not slow down for anyone.
Take it seriously and get what you came for. But have fun while doing it.
See you all at graduation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You won’t pass this way again.
If this helped you, share it with someone about to start their journey. And if you want to bless my Opay — well, the door is open. 😄
As someone that faced setback in her first year, all my problems are literally here. I've learnt my lessons.
Thanks for this piece 🥹
It also was refreshing