Living in a country such as Nigeria, being a student, being employed and being an entrepreneur at the same time is one of the most difficult things.
In my year one, I found a teaching gig to support myself, this entails putting my cooking skills on the line for the naira.
Another big challenge is often utilising the little time I have to take care of the plenteous responsibilities that I also have at hand.
You cannot afford to be stuck in a place for example schooling alone how about paying the bills involves taking care of the payments to get a degree?
It of course feels worthwhile, at year 3, currently, I'm into making of fascinator,turban and also bridal preparations for couples that are planning a wedding.
This isn't to say that having a side hustle or having streams of side hustles is easy. There's the problem of actually getting people to buy into what your offering. Money is an issue, a lot of people wants these services but not willing to pay, sometimes it feels difficult, other times it feels stressful. But generally being a jack of many trades can almost be impossible.
The degree is to actually back up the skill because when a skill comes with a degree then it becomes valuable but sometimes when a degree comes without a skill it becomes difficult to cope in a challenging country where there is too much competition.
Uyo is an industrous city, from dusk till dawn people are involved in one, two or more activities to up their financial ante. This is same with me, combining schooling with having a job to also being on hive. I appreciate being able to utilize that amount of time. Sometimes it feels 24 hours is not enough, sometimes my evening lectures spans till night and in this occasion you'll find me sleeping and exhausted just like on this picture I uploaded.
I'm living the typical life of a Nigerian student, because over here most students have one or two engagement apart from chasing a degree. This is usual and necessary because of the situation of the country. One has to be dependent and hope that they can secure a good job, there's enough emphasis on the word hope . For now, the goal is to be independent at all means.