Seun

The speaker discusses their upbringing in a traditional Nigerian household where education was the only way out of poverty. They were pressured to become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, with their father pushing for medicine. Despite struggling in medical school, they eventually switched to mechanical engineering due to family expectations. Feeling guilty about the financial sacrifices made for their education, the speaker conformed to their parents' wishes. This conformity led to anxiety and exhaustion, with the speaker struggling to find self-worth beyond academic achievements. This is my response to the questions you've given, so I'm going to go question by question and then each question I give an answer. So the question was, what were your parents' expectations for your academic life? Frankly speaking, you know, coming from a traditional Nigerian household, the expectation was very clear. The only way out of poverty was, you know, through education, there was nothing really, there was no alternative, if that makes sense, and everything else came last, even health. I mean, to this day, I don't even have that problem, I don't even have that problem where no matter how tired I am, I have to still make sure my homeworks, when I was a newbie anyway, you know, a few years ago, was always done and dusted and I would be in the library with my eyes, I'm usually tired, but I don't sleep, I even sleep in the library, you know, just to catch up on time so I can continue doing what I need to do to get, you know, get done, you know, even if I was exhausted, unwell, or even overwhelmed, as long as I was there to upgrade, all was well in their eyes, if that makes sense. Second question was, sorry, were I ever told that I had to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer? Absolutely, honestly. Like, it's like one of those things where you're like, oh, you know, you have to be either a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or you're a sailor, it's one of them for us, it doesn't really change. So it's the same thing, yeah. So for me, yeah, I was given only one option to decide, my dad really wanted me to become a doctor, so I could become a family doctor. And actually, I did study medicine for a year back home, but I really struggled, you know, it wasn't up for debate if I was going to study or not. So I did it, but I really struggled. And while I was studying, I just, I was just struggling with it. And then eventually, I had to switch and go to Mechanical Engineering. And even for me to do that switch, I had to have a lot of conversation with the family, and, you know, get my grandpa involved, and, you know, it was a big thing. But, you know, it's sort of like, yeah, everyone has to sort of do that. Question three, how did I respond to that pressure? Did I rebel? Did I conform? In my case, you know, I had to actually conform just because of the amount of financial support. And yeah, the amount of financial support and sacrifices my parents had to endure while I was in school. It was sort of, I felt very guilty, you know, of my dad saying, oh, I could have bought a nicer car, but I couldn't have to pay your fees. So I sort of had to conform. So I felt very guilty thinking of if I disappoint them, then it just feels like they've wasted their resource. And it wasn't, for me, in my case, it wasn't about my future in terms of, oh, I need to be, you know, get this grade because I need to get this big job in a consulting or whatever. It was more of, I felt like I was carrying their, sort of carrying theirs as well. So like, I was carrying their future because it was sort of, they were making a hedge on me saying, okay, you know, if you can give them all of this, then in the future you could become from them, you know, give back home and stuff like that. So that was sort of where, that was sort of where the pressure came from and I couldn't sort of rebel. So I had to conform. So I felt very guilty. And number four, what would you say to my mental health? Yeah, I did take a, you know, a real toll. I was constantly anxious and constantly tired. There was a fear I wasn't even doing enough, even though I was doing more than enough. But I just felt like, oh, I could do more, I could do more, I could do more, and I couldn't rest. But I know I didn't feel like I deserved to, but I started to time myself what, to my productivity and my achievement, you know, even to my mindset that I'm still trying to like, you know, unlearn and be like, okay, my success, so my self-worth is not success in terms of academics and stuff like that. I'm getting this project done. That's not my self-worth. It's more of, you know, something different now. The next question was, can I describe a specific moment when I felt the most proud of? Yeah. So during that year I was studying medicine and obviously I was, during our study in medicine, I was just more or less actually doing engineering because engineering sort of took my head off the pressure of medicine. So every night I would sort of just go and do a bit of engineering and, you know, play with this and bobs and bits and stuff. So I just remembered.