A young Nigerian man named Supreme Eteng has taken his time to outline 10 things he survived as a student in the UK.

Sharing his graduation photo on Facebook, he wrote:

“10 things I survived as a Student 👨‍🎓 in UK 🇬🇧

  1. Cold : Resuming school in September which happens to be the ending of Summer and beginning of autumn 🍂 is usually very cool, but nobody tells you how cold the next couple of months are going to be. The winter comes with snowing 🌨️ everywhere and extreme cold, this cold can freeze your brain and even your intestine (lol), especially as a single person the cold hits differently.
  2. Loneliness : Most days and nights are spent alone, you could find yourself doing things alone things that you might be needing moral support for. It’s even more difficult as a partly extroverted person. I’m the kind of person who loves living alone but not the kind where I absolutely have no one to share my thoughts with when I want to.
  3. Sharing apartment with Strangers: I had a few Nigerians in my apartment but largely the other occupants were Asians who also came to study. I could walk into the general area of the apartment and all I hear is some language I could never understand. Even the Nigerians living in the shared apartment were also very busy with their own studies and work we barely saw each other in weeks or months. I had to always manage myself and be sure I left the place clean for others to use but sadly they all didn’t share the same cleanliness values as myself.
  4. No Romantic Life : I had to k!ll this part of me for many reasons including a broken relationship just before I started schooling. So I hardly had anyone to talk to on the phone or even share a vibe with. It was cool for a while until I discovered I’d almost lost touch with how to even be romantic to the opposite gender. I was so engrossed in my books and work that even people who showed interest in me were so bored and tired of my inconsistency. Story for another day
  5. Strange Food 🍱: I started eating things I wasn’t so familiar with but thank God my stomach was patient with me. I ate different things at different times till I was familiar with strange things and now I know what my body can take and what it can’t. At least there’s African supermarket somewhere not so far I only discovered this months after I’d settled in.
  6. Bad Phone Signal📱: Because I came to England with a different phone that didn’t easily work with the network here it took me a while to fully download some of the apps I needed to flow well in school and navigating through daily activities like google map was funny, my browsing speed was not consistent even the university apps were not working well with my phone. I finally decided to go for an iPhone and my problems were solved.
  7. Money 💷: This was the biggest one but God showed me mercy I landed with the right people who put me through with jobs and applications and even supported me financially. I got recommendations from day one and I started getting little monetary gifts from my craft. Those connections I made still stand till today. From paying off fees and keeping up with a few other bills here and there all was on God and I’m grateful it went well.
  8. New house : When I got in, luckily for me I got an apartment immediately because someone had done the background work for me and this apartment was very affordable. But moving in there I had absolutely nothing to start with but this my boss man of a brother and friend got me everything in one shopping and boom I was good to go I’d barely stayed one week at his place before moving into my own little apartment. I can only imagine how I would have been able to get such a place with how slow my phone was.
  9. Accent : I struggled with understanding what people said to me but somehow divinely God opened my eyes and eyes in less than a week I could understand almost everything in the Nottingham accent. Yes I had to specify Nottingham because you might think every one in UK speaks the English with same accent. The locals had a way they spoke and being an average English speaker I had to listen carefully to was the bus , train or tram announcement was severally before I could get exactly what they said. My lecturers were different they’d been trained to speak slowly and carefully because of the international students they had.
  10. I survived myself : I had to daily remind myself that I am good and I am smart enough to go through the process. Sometimes I did cry literally because my eyes couldn’t bear the weather 🌦️, the lights and even the feeling that comes with being in a strange land. I had to drop that mindset of “afrikan time” it cost me extra money sometimes as I will have to be running to meet up almost all the time in my first 2 months.

Bonus: Most importantly I will say to anyone trying to navigate this part : please Be there for yourself even when nobody is there for you.
Gods got your back

Source: Supreme Eteng| Facebook

Email: elora.akpotosevbe@yahoo.com