How to Choose the Right Course in University

Choosing a course in Nigeria is not a simple matter of "follow your passion". You are choosing under real constraints: JAMB score, cut-off marks, school fees, family expectations, and a job market that does not always respect certificates. So let us think about it the way it actually is.

Start with three honest lists

Take a sheet of paper and divide it into three.

1. What I am actually good at. Not what I like watching. What I score well in without dying. Look at your last four terms of results, not your feelings.

2. What I can tolerate for four to six years. This is the question people skip. Medicine is not four years of "helping people"; it is years of anatomy, night calls and constant memorisation. Engineering is mathematics, every semester, no escape. Law is heavy reading and writing. Ask yourself if you can tolerate the daily work, not the title.

3. What that field looks like in Nigeria in five years. Not in America. Here. Who employs those graduates? What do they start on? Is there a route to self-employment?

The right course usually sits where the three lists overlap. Where only one list is satisfied, regret follows.

Understand the JAMB and cut-off reality before you choose

Nigeria adds a filter most advice ignores: your score decides which doors are open.

• Check the previous three years of departmental cut-offs at the schools you are considering, not just the general cut-off. Departmental is what actually screens you.
• Have a first choice, a realistic second choice in a related department, and a school with a lower competitive load.
• Know the O'level subject combinations. Every year people lose admission on a missing subject, not a low score.
• Understand what change of course after 100 level actually requires at your school. Some allow it with good CGPA; many quietly do not.

Choosing "related second choice" is the smartest move here. If Medicine is the dream, Anatomy, Physiology, Nursing, Biochemistry or Microbiology keep you in the same world with routes forward. If Computer Science is full, Mathematics, Statistics or Information Systems still lead to the same jobs, because that field hires by skill, not by certificate title.

Compare courses by daily work, not by prestige

Fill this table for your top three options. It removes a lot of fantasy.

Question	Course A	Course B	Course C
What will I do most weeks?
Which subjects carry the most credits?
Length of study plus internship or housemanship
Who employs graduates in Nigeria?
Realistic starting pay here
Can I freelance or self-employ with it?
Do I need a master's to be useful?

Fill it with information from real people, not assumptions. Which brings me to the most valuable step.

Talk to three people who already did it

Find and message three people: someone in 300 level of that course, a fresh graduate, and someone five years into the work. LinkedIn, X, a WhatsApp group, a church or mosque contact, a senior in your neighbourhood — Nigerians answer these messages more often than you expect if you are respectful and specific.

Ask them:

• What surprised you most about this course?
• What do you wish you knew before choosing it?
• What was your first job, and how did you get it?
• If you had to choose again, would you?

Fifteen minutes of this beats a week of guessing. It is also how you discover whole careers you never knew existed.

Handling family pressure without war

Many students are not choosing a course; they are negotiating one. So negotiate properly.

Do not argue with feelings ("I don't like Medicine"). Argue with a plan. Bring paper: the course you want, what the work is, who employs those graduates, what they earn, the two people you spoke to, and your intended path for the first three years after graduation.

What convinced my own family was not passion. It was a written plan they could inspect. Parents want security, not a specific title. Show them the security and the title becomes negotiable more often than you think.

Money and time are part of the decision

Be practical about the real cost:

• Fees, accommodation and material costs, per year, for the whole run.
• Courses with expensive practicals or compulsory extra years.
• Whether you can work part-time or freelance alongside it — Computer Science and Mass Communication allow it easily, Medicine and Engineering much less.
• Whether the school's ASUU history is likely to stretch four years into six.

None of these should decide alone, but pretending they do not exist is how people drop out in 200 level.

The truth about "the wrong course"

Here is what I have watched happen again and again: in Nigeria, your course opens the first door, and your skills open every door after that.

Microbiology graduates in data. Agric Science graduates in banking. Law graduates in tech product roles. English graduates writing for foreign companies in dollars. The certificate got them the interview once; skill kept them moving.

So if you end up in a course that is not your first love, the strategy is simple: pass it properly, and spend your long holidays and strike periods building one hard skill with a market — writing, data, design, software, sales, accounting tools, a trade. By final year you have both.

That combination is stronger than a "perfect" course with no skill attached.

A simple decision routine

If you are deciding this month, do this in one week:

1. Day 1–2: write the three honest lists.
2. Day 3: check three years of departmental cut-offs and subject combinations.
3. Day 4–5: message six people, hope three reply.
4. Day 6: fill the comparison table for your top three.
5. Day 7: choose, write one page on why, and keep it.

That last step matters. Write down why you chose it. In 200 level, when the course is hard and you are doubting everything, that page will remind you that you decided with your head and not because someone shouted the loudest.

So which of your three lists is currently deciding your course — and are you honestly comfortable with that?