Thanks for passing by and your very engaging comment!

Many thanks for this piece @lemouth. The first image reminds me of my time at the MIT in the Fall of 2017, yes Boston is a great place and reminiscent of some European cities in its building architecture. The the only difference I can think of as of now is that the streets/roads are bigger than some places I have visited in Europe (at least I know of Trieste in Italy).

I agree. Cars have a much bigger role in America than in Europe, and all cities (and even smaller towns and villages) are built with this in mind. One difference with respect to 2017 (I guess here; please confirm) is that bikes are now quite spread in Boston. There is a very nice bike sharing system that allows you to bike mostly anywhere. However, finding a free bike return spot at MIT is often complicated... It is a crowded area... ;)

This is what is obtainable in most of the Nigerian Universities, but it’s worse because of the student to lecturer ratio. To put this in perspective, 2 Professors may be teaching a 700-900 class and they are expected to create and mark assignments, create mid semester exam, final exams and mark.

The situation is a bit better here, with this respect. For very big courses attended by hundreds of students, there is a full team of professors and PhD students (they teach without being the teaching assistant of anyone in particular) that can share the burden. That softens the task a bit, and everyone may end marking 50-60 assignment sheets, taking care of a small groups of students during exercise and lab classes, etc.

This doesn’t stop there, there are some other administrative assignments that could be given to administrative staff, but the system will rather have Professors to take charge of that too….. I envy the American system a lot (in a good way)!

I agree that administration plays a huge part in the job, and this is probably the case all around the globe. I can definitely feel this as a vice-dean for the bachelor studies in physics here at Sorbonne. I however get a small reduction of my teaching load. Whereas it does not cover all the time spent in administration, it helps a bit.

As I said in the blog, there are many differences with other systems, that include both better items and worse ones. For instance, the French system comes with an excellent social security (healthcare) and (mostly) free education for everyone. You can get jobs quite early in the career, the salaries are not huge but very sufficient relative to the living costs in France, etc. On the other hand, there is very few personal grants (which can be taken either as an advantage or a disadvantage depending on the point of view).

From what you said, Nigeria seems to have all the cons of the French system but without having its pros. This is also my guess from past discussions with @gentleshaid. I wish one day the situation will ameliorate in your country, and that a solution to the current problems will be found soon!