5 Productive Activities to Engage with During ASUU Strike

By Najeeb A. A. Gambo

If you are studying in Nigeria, your university will likely join the call of ASUU to embark on a one-month warning strike. If that is the case, I recommend that you make the most of this regrettable and unavoidable strike by becoming more productive.

In fact, there are hundreds of ways to make yourself productive, but you may not be aware of them all. Given this background, I would like to share five possible ways to help you emerge smarter, knowledgeable, skilled, and confident after the strike action.

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Online learning

During the one month you will be at home; learning is one of the most productive activities you can engage in. The internet provides an excellent platform for you to achieve your goal.

Being someone who has worked in academia long enough to understand the needs of average students, my first recommendation is to enroll in the Power Searching with Google self-paced course. By taking this course, you will develop all the skills needed to navigate the world of the internet. Those skills will help you succeed academically and prepare you to navigate the work world after graduation.

You may also want to consider honing your data processing, presentation, and analysis skills. With these skills, you will undoubtedly become a better analyst and presenter when using data in your academic work. If you have these skillsets, you’ll also be more advantageous than those who lack them in the world of work. Here, I recommend taking advantage of the GCF LearnFree.Org website and their YouTube channel. The website is terrific and resourceful, and I am confident you won’t regret learning from it.

As this article is not intended to be too long, I suggest enrolling on a marketing course. For instance, you can download the Google Primer app and access the course even when you are offline. As an alternative, you can enroll in the Facebook blueprint course to learn how to market your products and services via Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Another excellent resource for learning marketing is Google Digital Garage and Google Analytics Academy.

Entrepreneurship is another critical area that you may choose to study. Here, you have a variety of options to choose from. Check out free courses on Edx, Coursera, Future Learn, Startup School, or watch a complete course on YouTube, The Foundations of Entrepreneurship, offered by FreeCodeCamp.

Volunteer work/Internship

If you are unable to enroll in online classes because you lack access to devices and internet data, perhaps you can work as a volunteer or intern at a place close to where you live. Considering the limited time, you have before the strike is called up, I would advise anyone not to apply for volunteer work or internships online. You must understand that you do not have a guarantee of being invited for an interview within the next week. So, please look around and make connections with people who can help you discover places where you can engage yourself as quickly as possible.

Getting involved in training our young ones to pass WAEC/NECO or JAMB will be one of the quickest ways for you to be a volunteer. Additionally, you can engage in community work such as engaging in campaigns against drug abuse or mobilizing your constituents to obtain their voter IDs, among other things. Make sure you act before ASUU calls up the strike.

Remember, when you volunteer, you will gain some soft skills that you can use on your CV. Some of these skills that you will learn may include problem-solving skills, collaboration and coordination, communications skills, presentation skills, and public speaking.

Reading Books

Reading books might be an option for you to consider within the one month that you will be at home if online learning or volunteering are not options for you. As such, you can decide to read books that are not necessarily related to what you are currently studying. For example, you can read books related to religion and spirituality, culture, personal development, productivity, habit building, or entrepreneurship.

Don’t be afraid to ask around if you don’t have the money to purchase books. There are hundreds of people who are willing to share their books with you. Additionally, if you are unsure about what books you will want to read, you can ask people for recommendations. You can get this recommendation through your social media network or by going to the World Economic Forum Book Club on Facebook. Furthermore, you can also get suggestions from Blinkist, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Bookish, BookBub, Olmenta, and Whichbook websites.

Learning a new trade

While a month is not long enough for a person to learn a trade and become a subject matter expert, I still recommend that some of you start learning a new trade. A person with enough experience in the field can help you learn anything from tailoring to woodworking or any other legal business you are interested in learning. Another example would be acquiring a variety of cooking skills or becoming a technician or mechanic.

Becoming a mentee

If you are contemplating studying abroad, engaging in an international business, or developing a product, finding a mentor will be something you will do during this strike. Additionally, you can pursue whatever your heart desires, whether it’s becoming a writer, a poet, a graphic designer, a makeup artist or a marketer, then try to find someone who is experienced enough to give you all the guides. By working with a mentor, you can accelerate your learning curve and avoid some of the major pitfalls.

In conclusion …

The above is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to productive activities that you can do during this strike. To sum up, make sure you engage in activities that will add value to your life.