SCHOOL IS NOT A DESTINY DETERMINING FACTOR

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                          I know that the difference between an illiterate and a literate can be sniffed from afar (pun intended), but I also know that someone who does not go to college is not doomed for life, on the contrary, some people do themselves a disservice by going to college and before I go further, for the records, I do not support illiteracy. In fact, I do my best to promote literacy. Some people understand this fact while others will argue with the last drop of their blood that they've got to get those college degrees to make it in life.

Am in college because I deemed it necessary to acquire some specific skills in order to achieve my dream and not everyone's dream has something to do with college.

I understand why it is this way, many factors come into play, plus youths have been told by their parents that they must earn college degrees because that's the trend or that's how it's meant to be. The fact that the country (Nigeria) is relatively offline doesn't help the situation at hand, as youths are oblivious of the opportunities that lay at their feet, they fail to see second chances offered to many people by life all because of the existence of the internet.

You are expected to have at least a B.Sc. to be considered reasonable in the country, all emphasis are laid on qualifications and capabilities are thrown out of the window. The crippling effect of this is evident when you come to other sectors like sports, traveling, you tubing, arts and photography, e.t.c.

They don't get to know that Steve Jobs (cofounder, former chairman and CEO of apple Inc., cofounder and former CEO of pixar and founder and former CEO of NeXT Inc.) was a drop out or that David Karp (founder and CEO of tumblr) didn't even graduate high school. Nigeria is a country where if you don't even earn those degrees, you will probably become a mechanic's assistant, a peasant marketer or a peasant farmer that is if luck makes you a companion and well, if your not lucky then? you will probably be pushing the wheel barrow or join the street hawkers, but this doesn't have to be this way though. The inbred mentality makes it the way it is.

Youths are meant to be explained to that the world isn't as compact or one-sided as they know it to be just from their limited view point (without the internet) and they are also meant to be told that not completing college education isn't a subject to years of doom. In fact, they might be making the best decision of their life skipping college which they will come to know in retrospect.

So many of the youths who could have easily been athletes or travellers or even seasoned artists and photographers opt to follow the norm and attend college to study degrees that have been associated with high prestige such as medicine, law and engineering.

The aftermath? they end up writing application letters that keeps getting rejected over and over again for most parts of their life and then comes the time where someone has to receive the blame, they effectively put the blame on life, the universe and God.

It's pretty disappointing, considering the fact that the individual would be much happier doing something else and living their dreams and passions, but now the case is different and dogmatism had already rendered them helpless. A call to immediate action is necessary.