Laila Ahmad is my 15 year old Senior Secondary School One (SS1) daughter who, yesterday, indicated her interest in what she wanted to study in the university. She asked me a question that surprised me when she said, "Baba, what's Mass Communication?".
After explaining to her what it meant, it was my turn to ask her where she heard about the subject. And she told me she heard her classmates discussing about it and she immediately got interested in it and decided it was what she wanted to study. She then asked if it was what I studied because she understood that I was a journalist.
I don't normally compel my children to study any particular course. As an educationist, myself, who studied Guidance and Counseling, I usually study their strengths and weaknesses and advice them on the subjects to study and thereafter guide them to choose their career and encourage them on their choices. I don't want them to fall into the same trap I fell into in my secondary school days regarding choosing a career.
In my junior secondary school days, I was good in Arts subjects, especially Geography, Arabic (I was the best in form 2), Islamic Studies, Hausa, English, Social Studies etc. But in form three, instead of choosing Arts, I chose to study science, even though I was not good in Mathematics and the sciences. I was carried away by the impressive big science books... 😃.
Although we had a Guidance Counselor, I insisted on studying science. Somewhere along the line I fell in love with Arts subjects like English Literature and Economics, but developed hatred for Physics and History. My dilemma widened when registering for WASC: I dropped Physics and as a science student, I was not allowed to do History, Arabic and Economics. So, I ended up neither a full science student nor an Arts student. And by then, my interest in English and English Literature had soured and surpassed any other. As I was a great reader, I had started reading novels like James Hadley Chase, Nick Carter, Agatha Christie, Stanley Morgan, in forms two and three, and in later years graduated into Robert Ludlum, Harold Robbins, Jeffrey Archer etc. I read any novel, newspaper and magazine that came my way: Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, J. P. Clark and other African Writers. I could finish James Hadley Chase in one day; I read all his novels two or even three times and spent a whole night reading a novel! It was no wonder then I ended up studying English, ultimately, even though I was a quasi-science student. I acquired a passion for writing and sharpened my writing skills as a broadcast journalist.
So, in order not to let my children to fall into the same trap, I guide them well without necessarily forcing them to pursue a particular career.
May Laila, like her siblings, make the right choice.