No matter what you decide to study at the university, you’ll need to put in hard work and dedication to be able complete your higher education. However, some courses in the university are harder than others, thus needing more degree of hard work and dedication to be able to surmount the challenges that come with studying such courses. In this article, we will discuss the 5 hardest courses to study in Nigeria.
The 5 hardest courses to study in Nigeria would be discussed below:
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Medicine and Surgery
Medicine and Surgery is arguably the hardest course to study in Nigeria as it’s a lot more rigorous than most undergraduate programmes. As a medical student in any Nigerian university, be it public or private, the six years you spend obtaining a degree in Medicine and Surgery would be characterized by lots of reading, studying advanced courses, and clinical rotations.
At the early stage of a Medicine and Surgery degree, you’ll be expected to learn the basics of how to treat and take care of patients. At the latter stage of medical school, you will begin spending more time in actual hospitals and clinics on clinical rotations, while still studying more advanced courses. These clinical rotations which would take you through a range of specialities in medicine, under the guidance of a physician, are intended to make you gain hands-on practice, preparing you to save lives when you graduate.
Asides from the rigorous classroom work and fast pace of clinical rotations that are tasking, medical students also feel intense pressure and resulting stress from the constant high expectations put on them. However, staying on top of your game by making sure not to fall behind on your class work and clinical work, asking lots of questions, making friends, and seeking out mentors, can help ease the stress of medical school.
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Mechanical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering is notorious for being very hard to study at the university since it requires that you learn a lot of mathematics, physics, chemistry, statistics, and advanced technical courses, among other things. Studying Mechanical Engineering includes much mathematics through the five years of the degree such as integration, geometry, trigonometry, algebra, calculus, derivation, and analytical methods, which involve challenging concepts and complex formulas which can be overwhelming at times. If you are bad at mathematics, it’s better not to study Mechanical Engineering.
Another thing that makes a degree in Mechanical Engineering a difficult course to study is that you’ll have to study various aspects of other branches of engineering, of which the subject matter of some of these branches can be pretty technical. In addition, the multiple laboratory sessions, workshops, and complicated workloads you face throughout your five years of studying this course make Mechanical Engineering among the hardest courses to study in Nigeria.
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Pharmacy
Pharmacy is another course that is notorious for being one of the hardest courses to study in Nigeria. Although the courses you’ll learn throughout your degree would not be hard to grasp so far you met the academic requirements to take on the course, it can be overwhelming considering the compounded number of units you’ll have to take per semester, the reports you are expected to turn in, and the courses you have to study for and meet the required pass marks for them.
As a student of Pharmacy in any Nigerian university, you’ll be required to take courses from several disciplines every semester, such as Microbiology, Physiology, Chemistry, and Pharmaceutical Sciences, among others. Getting a handle on the volume of courses you’ll be expected to take every semester can be overwhelming. What’s more, you are expected to meet the required pass mark for each course to be eligible to proceed to a higher level. Failing to pass courses after a second attempt can cause you to be withdrawn from the programme.
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Mathematics
Mathematics is renowned for being an extremely hard course to study in university. No wonder many people are scared to even consider studying Mathematics at university. Although the reputation of Mathematics is extremely hard is true, everybody can learn Mathematics. But to study Mathematics at the university, you’ll need to put in hard work and dedication if you want to complete a degree in Mathematics. This is where the difficulty in studying Mathematics comes into play because to pass any mathematics assessment, you’ll need to spend hours working on problems to be able to understand the basic rules.
Mathematics learning at the university level mostly deals with abstraction such as calculus, algebra, topology, category theory, functional analysis, set theorem, and real analysis, among others, which can be quite difficult to learn because these concepts are often tough to visualise and their rules rather intuitive to manipulate. Considering that studying mathematics as a course in the university will need abstract thinking patterns with various deductive argumentations, it can be overwhelming for many people. Another thing is since you will need to spend lots of time working independently to solve problem sets, it could become boring and you may be demotivated. However, hard work, dedication and passion for the course will make it less stressful.
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Chemical Engineering
Chemical Engineering is considered one of the toughest engineering courses to study in the university, and also among the hardest courses to study in Nigeria. The fact that this course is based on chemistry and mathematics, as well as physics and computing, among other things, makes its curriculum more rigorous. Based on the various courses you are expected to take from other disciplines, this course presents high workloads, and the examinations are more challenging when compared to other engineering courses.
In addition, Chemical Engineering may also involve working with abstracts, unlike other courses like Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. This inkling towards working and appreciating abstraction further adds to the complexity that this course already has. So, you’re expected to be proficient in quantum mechanics and calculus, among other advanced courses, on the road to becoming a chemical engineer in Nigeria.