STRUGGLES OF A DIRECT ENTRY STUDENT
I have always wondered how life at the uni after jupeb will be..… no final jupeb exams,freedom,new faces,New environment and new set of friends but little did I know that life after jupeb was nothing less than hell.
I got admission into Lasu as a DE student in 2024 and I was looking forward to the new academic chapter and I couldn’t wait to start classes, the urge of meeting my anticipated course-mates rises everyday, I mean I could hardly contain my happiness. The feeling of meeting new people and the “real uni life”. finally,I resumed school and I was so happy. one week into the semester and the reality hit me hard, I mean really hard. This was not what I expected.
The new faces were not exactly welcoming, everyone had their clique.The academic pressure was too much,way more than I expected it to be….Everything was so complex and I was lost. I was lost in the middle of the sea with no map, no guide, and no way out.I was drown in the mist of thousands,unknown and was asked to figure everything out,all alone.
I found it hard to cope and then I realized this is the reality of a DE student that no one actually talks about. Being a DE student comes with academic pressure, stress,Mental Imbalance and silent pains. It comes with a whole lot of discrimination,everyone looking at you like you took a shortcut you don’t deserve not knowing that shortcut came with it’s own load of struggles.
At some point I looked back and I had to snap out of it. if I could survive 9 months of academic stress and pressure to get to where I am then this is nothing. I stopped trying to fit in and I started moving at my own pace. I balanced it all. Academics, social life and everything in between and I did. even tho it was messy and overwhelming. I still did it.
Now I’ll tell you this for free, Getting into uni as a DE student is not a shortcut but a silent battle no one talks about and if you are in this right now, you are definitely not alone. you are allowed to struggle, feel out of place and fall but what matters is you rise back up and be proud of how far you have come, your little wins matters and yes we never skipped 100level we just took a different path…that which we survived and not all can survive.
This is very beautiful ❤️. You never skipped a level instead you took a different path and still ended up in the same destination with those who started from 100 level.
I’m rooting for you gurll
You did well my love.. and you’ll survive
This applies to all newly admitted students not just the direct entry students. I can relate because I also found it difficult coping with the new environment, academic system, it just seems you have to figure it all alone because even as a 100 level student, we could hardly differentiate between a fresher and a staylite even our lecturers and those who we ask for direction seems to be in the same fate as we are. We struggle with everything but as time goes on, probably by the time we move to the next level we would have understood the system well and know how to navigate it.
The way direct entry students are being looked at is also the way our seniors in the system look at us when we were newly admitted (Jolly Just Come) but we would eventually find our way.