Hey parents, I’m dropping out

This is the email I sent to my parents (siblings, uncle and aunties were CCed) a few years ago telling them of my decision to drop out of Unilag.

Good day everyone,

I think it’s important that I try my best to explain my thought process. I’ve attempted to do this many times but I think nobody every really understands me over the phone, or face to face.

Everybody that talks to me about this has an agenda and it’s not to listen to me. That plus the fact that the conversation’s format allows for interruption on both sides, makes it more difficult to see my thought process as one whole thing, instead of many small things.

First and foremost, I think I should touch on my emotional and mental well being. I’m a very cheerful person on the outside and it never really seems like I get depressed or feel hopeless. It always just seems like “Timi doesn’t care”, nothing really affects him that deeply. Well, that’s not the case. Nothing in this life has ever made me as sad and depressed as Unilag. Nothing has ever really made me doubt myself as much. I find myself thinking that maybe there’s something truly wrong with me, maybe I’m mentally disadvantaged. I’ve done some cursory research on some of these things like ADHD, Dyslexia etc just to see if I had any symptoms. My parents say it, my uncles and aunties say it, “the people that are doing the school, do they have two heads”, “look at your friend, he wasn’t even as smart as you, he has finished”. These things had real effects on how I viewed myself and it took effort to start believing in myself again, to start realising that nothing is really wrong with me.

I’m not perfect, nobody is, but everybody has strengths and weaknesses. Mine are things like the inability to survive in an educational system like ours, I cannot learn without understanding, I cannot fake knowledge or spoof it, it’s either I realllllly understand something because it is practical and tangible to me or I fail to grasp it forever. On the flip side, when I know something, when I understand something, I always know it well, and I’ll excel at it.

Now, we’re all aware of a couple of facts:

• The Nigerian education system is piss poor. It’s rubbish. It’s not even average, it’s really poor, we’re soooooo far behind in education and thinking about it makes me sad about our country’s prospects. People graduate with 0 knowledge, they don’t know anything. Can’t create any value. Fortunately for me, I have parents that gave me the exposure to learn and become enlightened in other ways.
• Secondly, our country is in shambles, there is no work for anybody. If you like have first class, second class, everything is hard for everybody.

I’m just trying to highlight that we all know that this 3rd class degree will be useless for me. It will not help my life in anyway. But that’s not all:

• If I get this degree, it won’t the make the 8+ years feel like any less of a waste of time. I won’t feel accomplished, I might even feel worse, that this system managed to fully waste my time and what I get as a reward is a useless piece of paper.
• Secondly, I have a career that is fulfilling. I work really hard at it and it’s really important to me. It often seems like this aspect is often discarded even though most of you say it’s not. It always seems like “what are you doing sef that you think you can get away with not getting a degree?”. To do anything concerning Unilag, I have to take time off this career. Even more, my emotional and mental state due to having to interact with this place again will negatively affect my career.
• This is not the first time I’m being asked to “try school again”. I’ve honestly wanted to leave school since my third year. I didn’t say it out loud at the time but that’s how I felt. And the only thing that keeps me trying is my parents, my family, this is what they want. I’ve been pressured to keep trying, to keep doing it despite how it makes me feel. Despite all the things I’ve listed above. It may not seem like pressure, but I assure you, there’s a lot of emotional pressure that comes with your entire family saying this is what you should do to be of value, and that your inability to do it is because your attitude is wrong.
• I’m not going through that sadness again. It’s not worth it. Nothing should make me feel that way. I don’t think any piece of paper that won’t help my life in anyway is worth me feeling so stupid and incapable again, even if it’s for just a week.
• Finally, you may not realise it, but it often seems like you’re reducing my self worth to the ability to “get a degree”, like it’s not possible for me to make you proud or happy unless I do this thing. And like I said earlier, this has really messed with me. But I’ve gotten to a stage that I don’t believe that you people think the only valuable thing I can do is to get the degree. I know I’m much more than that you people. I might actually be wrong, and if that’s the case, I’m sorry that I failed you.

I want to add that I love all of you and I know that everything from you people is as a result of care and deep love. I couldn’t have asked for a better family, both nuclear and extended.

But I’ve made my decision and I hope I’ve been able to express why. Nothing will change my mind and I hope you can understand.

Namaste