“Though it lacks the basic elements of poetry, it was a thought-provoking poem,” he said after I stepped down from the podium for the open mic poetry performance.

Jibola, the program moderator smiles as he critiques my poem titled “It could be you”. He was a 300 level student in the Department of Statistics, College of Natural Sciences, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta in 2014, and an alumnus of Kachifo Creative Writing Workshop with Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche in the same year.

I had overheard someone from the audience saying, the poem is perfect in its class, perhaps he was thinking aloud that his thought echoes in the hall.

“A poem doesn’t necessarily need to contain rhymes, simile, metaphor and other figures of speech that are considered poetic elements before it serves the purpose of a good poem as long as it’s simple, unambiguous and resonates with the readers’ mind, this poem we just heard is one of the uncommon, non-conformist but beautiful and well-written poems I’ve heard recently” He continued as the mic was passed to him.

So, I had chosen to ignore the critiques coz… that was all I could do. So, I had to cover up my latest goof. I pretended to be enjoying the critiques, so I smiled to feel less embarrassed.

 

Here’s is the full story.

It was the third week I had been on campus as a fresh student, I was just admitted into 200 level in the Department of Physics at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta Nigeria via direct entry admission.

Two literary clubs in the school, Topnotch Writers Organization (TWO) and Just a Poet (JAP) had organized literature week and had invited writers, on-air personalities and poets, prominent among them was the winner of the 2013 Nigerian NLNG prize for literature, Tade Ipadeola, a legal practitioner and a poet.

I heard about the program in the early hour on the day of the event when the organizers embarked on awareness rally on the campus and implored students to attend the event, I quickly headed to Julius Ameoba Okojie hall 2 (JAO2) the venue of the event to get registered.

Literary and debate club had been at the top of the list of clubs I wanted to join on campus, this was inspired by the 2007 Holywood movie produced by Oprah Winfrey “the great debaters” where Denzel Washington acted the role of Dr. Tolson, a professor at Wiley College, who motivated his students to form the first-ever debate team. Hard work pays off when the team defeated Harvard in the national championship debate competition.

So without hesitation, I was at the venue. That was the second time I would be sitting in a hall where the 2013 winner of the Nigeria highest prize for literature Tade Ipadeola would be speaking and read from his winning book “Sahara Testament” after the 15th Lagos Book and Art Festival in 2013. It was a fascinating experience.

The organizers had scheduled 20 minutes of open mic performance as an interlude in the program of the event. Five people had filled the form that has earlier been passed to the audience and I didn’t fill the form.

After the five open mic performance, the program moderator, announced if there’s anyone who wishes to read his work to the audience as there were 5 minutes left from the scheduled time for the open mic session.

I raised my hand, and walked to the podium, I had written something I don’t know which genre of literature to categorize it, but I’d arranged it in four lines stanzas and called it a poem and titled it “It could be you”

The idea of my writing centered on trauma and challenges faced by the people who have been internally displaced and live in the refugee camp due to the Boko Haram insurgence.

Jibola, the program moderator smiled as he critiques my poem titled “It could be you”.

“Though it lacks basic elements of poetry, it was a thought-provoking poem,” he said after I stepped down from the podium.

Jibola, the person I later found out was a 300 level student in the department of Statistics and an alumnus of Kachifo Creative Writing Workshop with Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche in 2014.

The guest speaker Tade Ipadeola added after the critiques “the poem is brilliant, as it mirrors the society well irrespective of its simplicity and amateurish nature. I am impressed something like this can come out from a university without faculty of art and humanity, an all science institution”.

That experience turned out to be a great blessing for me.

The second week after the program, I received an invitation to join the Just a Poet Club, as well as Topnotch Writers Organization (TWO) where I would later serve as an assistant editor in 2015.  Ever since, not only that I have gone ahead to have my poems published in National Newspaper, and several online journals and anthologies, I have also learned essential skills such as leadership skills, managerial skills and other soft skills for greater career prospects that contributed to my career and personal development.

End of story.

Let’s talk about Extra-Curricular Activities

Our parents are not very keen on the role we play in the Debates, Acting, and Science or Sporting competitions. Even if we occupy the first place. To them, it’s no big deal as that’s not what they expect from us and has less to do with the school fee they are paying. But when you get the first-class grade, then they get the whole family and society down to your graduation ceremony.

This is why nowadays, students are more involved in academic studies, not because they enjoy spending all their life studying or are always engaged in more study voluntarily.

In many cases, it was because of the pressures the guardians and educational institutions mounted on them. As a result, participation in Acting, literary and debate, Young Scientists and Engineers, Sports, business, or other co-curricular activities get less priority.

What’s more saddening is that they get less idea if any, about the enormous benefits they could derive from co-curricular activities that profoundly can bring great success in their career as well as their whole life.

This is not to say you should boycott your study or give it less priority. Your study is a must as it is your primary assignment in school, but what I mean is that study or learning cannot be the only job you do in school. This alone won’t give you the top technical skills to generate high income in career.

You should learn from many other related learning activities. Such as Sports, Debate, Acting, Poetry, Science, and Math quiz clubs. These will serve as complementary to your education.

But with so much pressure from guardians and teacher to only focus on what’s being taught in the four walls of class and the rat race for high grades, there is nothing like outside the study activities. As a result of this, lots of students are learning at the end of the day only the theories necessary for the examination.

And this has birthed graduates with a lack of necessary skills required for achieving success in career and life.

What are Co-Curricular or Extra-Curricular Activities?

Co-curricular or extra-curricular activities are types of activities that take place outside the normal curriculum or educational classroom setting. But these activities are often characterized to be fun with high impact learning and skills, and most importantly have great benefits that are complementary to the academic curriculum of an educational establishment.

Extra-curricular activities are not graded. There is no any kind of academic credits for participating in any form of extra-curricular activities.

For example, if you participate in your school Sport team, Debate Club, Science Quiz Club, Theatre,   Drama, Scouts, Business Club, Writings, etc. and you always have a sterling performance, that doesn’t add to your grade in any way. In fact, if you fail any course as a result of your commitment to a competition that would bring glory to your school, the management won’t pass you because of that.

 

Benefits of Co-Curricular Activities

Extra-curricular activities are as important as academic activities. They carry many essential benefits. Some kind of extra-curricular activities would make your brain, heart, and hand all working together, make you highly productive, and exposes you to more practical life experience. Here are a few benefits of extra-curricular activities

 

Career Development: It helps you develop relevant soft skills necessary for carrier development. By participating in campus club activities you will develop several career opportunities. As a result, you will get priority over others while entering your desired career.

 

Increase Efficiency: if you’ve noticed, students who regularly participate in sports and other activities are usually physically fit from others who do not do such activities. Metabolism and blood flow increase due to physical exertion. It also increases stamina and mental alertness.  As a result, people who engage in such activity in normal life and at work are much better than others. They work a lot for a long time too.

 

Improves Creativity: If there’s anything I love most about co-curricular activities, it would be the fact that it allows you to hone your skills and unleash your talent. It challenges you to think creatively and makes you explore and go out of your comfort zone.

If the right environment can be provided, then these qualities will develop in anyone. Extra curriculum activities help to ensure that environment of course. Sports, debate, songs, or writings all help in increasing creativity.  When students participate in such activities, a new door opens to them. This door shows the way to their creativity. As a result, their thinking changes.

 

Time Management Skills:  when you engage in so many activities, then time management is crucial. Participating in various extra-curricular activities gives you the opportunities to learn how to perform different types of tasks at a limited time and how to deal with new challenges which are the great benefits and experience to life and career development.

 

Reduces Stress: Nowadays, it is being noticed that school, college, and university going students are under stress or pressure. The reason for this is a competitive daily assignment, weekly or mid-semester test, and the rate race for high grade in the examination. The students fall under the pressure of so many things before the examination.

Extra-curriculum activities provide excellent opportunities to reduce stress. These activities give you a much-needed break and relaxation. They remove all anxieties by cooling your brain.

 

Increases Self-confidence: If you do not have enough confidence in yourself, you can sometimes get depressed. Students who did not try new things in life without formal activities are often faced with this problem. So, if you do involve in various activities, you will not have negative thoughts on your head.

When you do more than one thing, you will feel valuable to yourself and will increase your self-confidence. By this, you will become wise and experienced. As a result, you’ll be able to overcome more stubborn and all types of hurdles than ever before.

Teamwork: Co-curricular activities create the opportunity to learn from working with different types of people. This results in valuable teamwork skills.

Generally, students who participate in co-curricular activities like the debate team, the volunteer team develop teamwork skills. As a result, when they enter a career they outshine their counterparts due to teamwork skills gained from extracurricular activities.

You can develop teamwork skills from some things that cannot be learned from the book’s page. For example- the quality of being able to influence another person, the quality of being able to lead, etc. These are skills you can learn only from co-curricular activities.

What is your experience with extracurricular activities? How well do you participate in extracurricular activities? Which extracurricular activity do you enjoy? Leave your comment below

 

 

About the Author

Yusuf Olanrewaju is a freelance writer, a poet and essayist. He has contributions in blogs and online magazines. He writes on issues centered on productivity, personal development and tech. he lives in the peaceful city of Ilorin Nigeria.