What sort of student was I or still am? Let's find out...
So I am the impatient one, like I cannot just sit and say let me read or study, it bores me but then I am gifted such that I have a very active memory so cramming was my go to study time. While I was in Primary school, my preparation for exams starts that morning of the exam, when I got to secondary school, my preparation for exams starts the day before because of the volume of work I needed to cram.
I got to Uni and started studying a week to exam and by studying I mean cramming but then studying a week means I have to start all over again with the cramming process as all what I have crammed over the week seem to leave my memory upon sitting for the exams as it's more of la cram la pour not la read la store. In such embarrassing situations where I had forgotted all that was crammmed I'll start asking my friends for answers. To save myself the embarrassment, I quit the one week before exam study and resorted to Awoko or TDB(Till day break).
Now during that TDB, I can't possibly fit all that was written during lecture in my head, I had a reading partner then whom is very good at summarizing. Basically, he'd read a topic and summarize all that was read in few lines without glancing at the book a second time. As he's summarizing, he's grasping all that was read and forming an understanding of what was read. But you see me lazy student? I will wait for him to summarize a topic and then hijack that summary to cram while waiting for the next summary.
It is that his summary I will now cram to go write the Exam and it was working well for me then because I was always coming out top 3 or rarely top 5.
Fast forward after I got done with my first degree, I progressed to my second degree which I didn't initially have plans for but I was pushed by one of my lecturers who took interest in me as a bright and "serious" student and felt I shouldn't end up with just a B.Sc degree especially from a Private uni. He wanted me to have a solid foundation and be well grounded in my field so he asked I further to a Federal Uni for my masters.
At the time of my Second degree, he had already left the Private Uni I graduated from and was in one of the federal universities of which he helped me gain admission there.
During the registration process for my second degree, I faced series of embarrassment as the officials told me to my face that I do not belong to their Uni as I don't have what it takes to graduate being that I'm coming from a Private Uni with not too high an educational ranking in the country. Some of them as if to prove their point of me failing out will go check my CGPA on my transcript only to meet a shocker that I'm a 4 point graduate. They'll get embarrassed and end up saying lets see how it goes if you can defend your result.
It was more like these officials knew the compromising way I got the result but still I was relentless and bent on proving them wrong and show them I deserve to be in the Uni to further my studies as well as everyone else from high ranking Uni.
Lectures started and after some months exam came. I went for my first exams with the mindset of how hard can it be? I had attended extra moral classes which was unlike me, I even had a reading book and kept studying without subscribing to my a day to exam thing as I didn't know exactly what to meet in the exam hall and the School officials had already written me off.
I suspected it would be quite challenging and just wanted to prove those who wrote me off wrong so I did my best in preparing for the exams. I got into the exam hall with all I have crammed and when the questions came, I read first one, there was a loud gbim! in my head, I read second one, all what I crammed started flying out one by one. I read third one and started sweating profusely that they had to change my seat to the window side so air can be touching me.
I felt like my breath was going to seize and i6 had already seen myself failing out. I was going to start having a panic attack but I held myself. I looked around and saw everyone was busy with their pen but I'm there sweating like a Christmas goat with my heart pumping so fast it felt like it wants to jump out of my chest. I managed to calm myself down and went over the questions again, this time reading slowly to understand and remember all that was taught and all that I have crammed if I could marry them and find answers to the questions but I couldn't.
I had read the questions for over ten times before it dawned on me they were application questions like word problems sort of questions just they were more realistic. It wasn't a what is or explain this or define that sort of question I was used to, so basically there was no definite answer but you profering solutions to an economic problem like an expert. After all, I am studying to become a master in my field.
It was a two hour exam and I had already exhausted a better part of the time trying to figure out where to start answering the questions from. I closed my eyes took a deep breath and told myself you can do this just try to remember all what the lecturer discussed in class.
I took a trip down memory lane and my mind started playing like a recorded video and I started remembering most of what the lecturer talked about in class. You know I always wondered how we would be studying a textbook but the lecturer never discussed about the text book, instead he talked about history and real life economic events/crisis. Right there and then it all made sense and with what I recollected I was able to write something with the time remaining.
I progressed to writing all my papers and when the results got published, I had all Cs with an F. I saw that F and I wanted to cry because I have never failed academically before but then I took it as a challenge, changed my reading group, got another reading partner whom on one occasion of reading he told me don't read to pass but read to understand because when you understand what you are studying you won't try so hard to pass and academic success will come naturally. So what he does during studying time, he will ask me to read a page and then summarize it by explaining what I understood by it.
It was very difficult for me at first because I hate reading makes me feel like I'm wasting my time as I like everything sharp sharp and I'm a short cut kinda of person. But studying with Abdul changed all that as in no distant time I started reading to understand and not to pass. The moment I got a hang of it, all what I had been thought in my undergraduate days that did not make sense to me started making sense.
Exams came and I didn't have to struggle or embarrass myself. I wrote like I was writing a biography and when the results came out I was having As and Bs.
I graduated with a good grade and felt like going back to the office of the peoole who said I wont graduate to show them I actually did it.
Thank you for your time, hope you get to learn a thing or two and contributions will be highly appreciated.