ISESA UniJos Chapter

#2: SCIENCE INTEGRATORS - Living the Experience
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Living the Experience

by

I remember one fateful evening, in a conversation with my mom in the parlour when a notification came on my phone. It was the long-awaited UTME result. Although I hadn't waited for so long for the result, it felt like I did. The anxiety created mixed feelings. There I was, wanting to see the result but at the same time worried about what the score would be. This anxiety was more real to me than the phone in my hands and the couch I was sitting on.

On tapping the notification bar, excitement pulled me out of the couch, and my head almost touched the vinyl ceiling in the room. I think I screamed, "JAMB result!" My mom collected the phone and her face brightened up. I scored well above 200. I had applied to study medicine at the university; my childhood dream was to become a medical doctor. My UTME score gave me hope. Like every other serious-minded university applicant, I did my research and found out that candidates who scored 250 and above had the chance of being admitted into medicine, and if not, to another course not too far from it, so I was hopeful. The next thing on my mind was the post-UTME (Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination).

After a series of internal and external ASUU (Academic Staff Union of Universities) strikes and Student Union Government (SUG) protests, admissions finally came and that gave me the shock of my life. "Integrated Science and Education? What the hell is that?" I felt disappointed. Although I resolved to accept the admission, I planned to rewrite another UTME the following year.

The registration process was a tedious one. You could be punctual and still not achieve what you set out to by the end of the day. The Integrated Science Education Programme (ISEP) was one of the newly introduced courses at the University of Jos during the 2014/2015 academic session. I was among the first set enrolled for the course, so you can call my set the "UTME Pioneer Set".

Pleasant as it may sound, the experience of being a member of that class wasn't nice. As a pioneer set, we had no reference point except the level coordinator assigned to our class who was also a lecturer and a researcher and was not always available whenever we had concerns that needed clarification. So, for those periods when our dearly beloved Mrs. Asabe Edward Bash was not available, we had to fend for ourselves.

I stayed a month at the university without knowing my coursemates. In fact, it was at the end of the first semester that I got to know all my coursemates. We were only 30 or so. Interestingly, none of us applied for the course. I know, for many of us, the name "Integrated Science" reminds us of the junior secondary introductory science subject and would make one at initial points to berate the course, thinking it's just going to be a four-year walkover, but my mates and those who came behind us would agree with me, in strong terms, that Integrated Science is as demanding as any other course in the university, if not more demanding. I don't know if adjustments have been made, but the experience of shuffling two campuses, sometimes more than once a day, depending on the timetable, to take courses all around the Faculty of Natural Sciences isn’t a funny experience at all. The number of courses one had to offer in a semester was quite cumbersome. In fact, you dare not fail any as some of those courses were prerequisites to offering their higher forms at higher levels.

You also have to think of the space to add up courses from previous sessions to a new session which already has enough courses of its own. No student is expected to exceed 48, the maximum number of credit units a student can take in a session. This is me saying that if you have taken the bull by the horns to study integrated science at the University of Jos, you have to be serious at every point of your study.

There's this demeaning attitude toward students of Education by students from other faculties. I want to tell you that they're no better than you are. You may not get the chance to debate your way into convincing them that you're good, so the best way to do so is to storm their faculties, ace every course that comes your way, and do so with your integrity intact. Integrated science may not have been your dream course, but who says you can't make the best of it and attain any point you want? Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General (DG) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), is an accidental economist and many others too numerous to mention are at the top echelons of greatness. That may just be your place!

Let me end with this quote from Michael Phelps: "There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, there are no limits."

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The photo: Aaron Luka is a member of the ISESA Class of 2018 at the University of Jos. You can contact him via e-mail: [email protected]

#1: SCIENCE INTEGRATORS - Living the Experience
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A Journey Worth the While*

by Tongjal Wungakha Nungbulla

We were all seated in the living room after dinner when I screamed out in excitement, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" Everyone had a question mark creased across their faces. I had a phone in hand. They must have thought I was reacting to someone’s comment on a post or reply to a chat. I was unsettled for close to five minutes before I regained the stability to respond to their questions appropriately.

"I got admitted into the University of Jos," I said with cheer but declining excitement for I was not ready for the questions that I imagined would follow.

"What course?" Dad asked immediately, supported mutedly by Mum and inquisitive postures from my siblings.

I took a brief pause before responding. Is the news of being admitted without giving the full details not enough to light up the mood of the evening? I may have thought so at the time but could not have expressed it so. Shortly after, I responded in a hushed tone, "Integrated . . . Science . . . Education."

"In-T-what?" Dad asked with a little calm. "Repeat what you said again; I didn’t get you clearly."

"INTEGRATED SCIENCE EDUCATION."

That little exchange was just another moment supporting Dad’s conclusion that I ought to learn to speak audibly and not always assume that everyone is of the same age group as I am, let alone assume that everyone hears the same way. However, there was more to that or so, I thought. That question punctured my balloon of excitement and brought me back into the reality of my society’s consciousness, by which I was haunted, hence the swift change of tones in that brief span of time.

Silence ensued. My siblings could not respond for they may not have understood the reason for the silence. All they knew was that I was admitted into a university and had reserved speculations as to why nothing like “Medicine” or “surgery” was mentioned as I shared the details of the reason for my excitement.

Dad broke the silence. "What is the course all about?"

"I don’t know. I am just knowing this course exists."

"Is that not one of your subjects in secondary school?" Mum asked innocently.

Though her question was innocent, I was hurt. That evening of 7th March 2018 was the beginning of a dark season in my life which lasted longer than I expected.

It was a long evening. I was asked a series of “what questions”. The question which resounded the most was "What next?" I responded to the few I could, kept mute for those I could not answer and those I felt needed no answer.

Time wouldn’t stop simply because I was hurt and scared of what the following days would hold, not even if it was about what my lifetime would be. A restless night followed; thoughts clashed in my head, my eyelids held tight but to no avail, and the springs underneath the mattress could tell they were overstretched that night.

Against all odds, I accepted the admission. In fact, that was done before the suggestion to wait and apply for JAMB in the coming year or to enrol for Remedial Studies (a pre-degree course in the University of Jos for Science students who wish to make up for lapses in their admission, thereby attaining better chances of being admitted to study their choice course).

None of those suggestions made sense to me. I simply disliked the idea of waiting an extra year before continuing my education; for reasons such as being disregarded by acquaintances who have high expectations of my becoming. I dreaded the idea of applying for JAMB again because, prior to my first sitting for that exam in 2017, I was not clear about what I wanted to study to become. With every week that passes, about a month to JAMB, I changed focus from Medicine to Engineering and all the other revered courses in the society. I never wanted to make a choice of a career based on high-earning prospects alone; I wanted to do something that is rewarding, beyond just the financial returns. I wanted to do something that fed my curiosity and in which I’d joyously invest my time, talents, gifts, and all such endowments. Just maybe I’d find out what my path is in life, academically, when studying this course I have been admitted to study for four years.

The session commenced. I was overwhelmed by the excitement of being in a higher institution, a totally new environment for me, in my first year. I soon paid very little attention to the memories of that evening. As I acclimatised to the new environment and contacted some of my friends elsewhere, thoughts about studying to become a teacher became appalling. That feeling lasted through to my first semester in my third year. School and all it allowed an opportunity for were not fascinating. I struggled every morning to get myself to class. Conversations or time out with friends and coursemates in school, outside of lectures, were not helping. Bedtime seemed scary for my thoughts and imagination about where studying this course would lead me to later in life was like being roared at (like a lion’s roar) in a dark room.

Light found a way into my dark space. I realized this is a journey of becoming. That life’s end is not in what one studies. There is more to being alive. This is like a pathway I would traverse in my lifetime.

Dad and Mum were light sources: they provided support in many subtle ways, emotionally, and financially, with kind words and actions. The climax of their support is when Dad said to me that this is a journey of becoming, of discovery and has always remained hopeful. Friends, who were my coursemates, who had had their minds baptized in hope, flashed theirs in conversations and actions. There was a flood of light rays pouring into that dark space I had hidden in for quite a long time. Statements of hope and declarations of God’s promises in fellowships of like-minds were like bullets shot through whatever denied entrance of light to where I was.

The people I was surrounded by through my years as an undergraduate played a major role in ensuring that I got through a course filled with many ups and downs, and all the more discouraging given its near obscurity in the rating of courses studied in the university. No one in my class, through secondary school, wanted to become a teacher. We all wanted prestigious and hallowed fellowships and associations.

Yet, I have no regrets for staying through it. (I’ve made attempts to change twice. I made good shots but did not hit the bull’s eye). The ill-treatments in lecture rooms and theatres only made me feel less for a moment but did not succeed in making me think less of who I am purposed to be. Those years in school were a refining process. Through the tides, I have seen more sides to who I am not and what strength I possess.

There is more beyond this phase, I reckon. I keep evolving as I tend towards the end of my lifetime. Meanwhile, I confess that this is a journey worth the while. At least, I would not have this story to share if I was elsewhere.

Be encouraged; there’s more to life!

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The photo: Tongjal, W. N. is a member of the ISESA class of 2021 at the University of Jos. You can contact him via e-mail: [email protected]

*This is the first of other entries for the maiden edition of the Science Integrators yearbook to be published here. The other entire will follow subsequently. Ensure you keep tabs on the update.