Author: Joseph Adonu
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Here is a transcribed and edited interview held with the author by an interested reviewer of this book:
Interviewer: I’m glad for this opportunity to talk with you, Joseph! Tell me, exactly what motivated you to write a book on “How to Excel and Have Fun at University”?
Joseph: Recently a female second-year student on one of our undergraduate courses knocked on my office door and came in to seek my advice on “how to excel and have fun at uni”, as she put it! I smiled and asked her to take a seat and we started a conversation that lasted an hour. After the conversation when this student had left, I leaned back in my chair and instead of going for a lunch break, I entered a reflective state for the next thirty minutes. I literally did not feel hungry anymore and therefore forgot my lunch break. I was drawn into reflecting on my vast experience out of which I was able to deeply understand the student’s situation and offer her such powerful ‘secrets’ and sound advice. In effect, this student’s life was never the same again. She had gained an uncommon life-changing understanding and inspiration for her university experience. Though I have always had a long-standing commitment to and passion for inspiring and guiding students in their studies and pursuit of life goals, the encounter with this student on that particular occasion served as the immediate stimulus for documenting the material in this book on “How to Excel and Have Fun at University”
Interviewer: You must have had a wealth of teaching and learning experience over the years. Tell me about it.
Joseph: Right! Here’s a brief account of my experience and how it has equipped me for making such creative impact on students’ lives. I grew up in a family of technical skills where my dad was a goldsmith and my brothers and sisters are fine artists, technicians and tailors. As a result, I grew up with a natural inclination and suggestion to pursue technical education. After elementary school, I entered technical school and polytechnic to pursue automotive engineering up to technicians’ qualifications. This gave me a very solid background in mathematics and engineering science. I excelled in this pursuit, to the point of winning a government of Ghana scholarship that covered my fees, as well as winning a prize medal from City and Guilds Institute of London.
Beyond such achievement, I had an unquenchable desire to pursue the social sciences to the extent that even while in the polytechnic, I would go to the library and read philosophical and psychological material. A couple of years later, I refocused by educational direction to the university to pursue a psychology honours degree. I have had to take a few steps back to write O’Level and A’Level, both within a period of two years. During this time, I taught technical drawing and technical skills in a junior secondary school.
On my psychology degree at the University of Ghana, I had great fun and excelled at the same time. I came up with a first-class honours, which gave me the opportunity to be selected to serve as a teaching assistant in my department and later as a research assistant. During this time, I came in contact with researchers and friends who had significant impact on my interest and effort in going to graduate school. I therefore embarked on a PhD. programme at Brunel University in England and pursued it with intellectual excitement, mixed with a sense of adventure. During the time of my PhD study, I continued to serve again as teaching assistant in my department as well as part-time lecturer in another university in London. Finally, after completing my PhD, I took up the position of lecturer in psychology at the University of Bedfordshire.
Some of my part-time lectureship engagements during my PhD study involved temporary teaching of social science statistics in various departments when some professors went on leave. In addition, I engaged in a permanent part-time lecturing in further education where I served as pathway leader on a psychology access programme at Thames Valley University in West London. In this particular role, besides teaching, I served as a research project supervisor as well as personal tutor for returners to learning who were of the mature-student category.
To backtrack a bit, during my years on the bachelors degree, I continued to teach young people in junior secondary schools, an experience that helped me deepen my understanding of teaching and learning. Also during my PhD study, I always helped and worked with colleagues on various postgraduate degrees, as I was interested and considerably skilled in research methods-oriented issues such as statistics, psychometrics and qualitative methods. In this way, I had the opportunity to discuss problems and solutions related to academic work with students and pupils from the lowest to the highest levels of education. Out of this wealth of experience, I offer ‘secrets’ and advice to students in a way that touches them at the point of their need, because, I have sat where they sit! I have been where they currently are. I have been to the depth of the ‘valley’ they may be in, and the apex of the mountaintop they aspire to reach! I have had substantial educational experiences across many fields, in four universities and on two continents!
Interviewer: Through all this vast experience, what difficulties and challenges have you met and overcome that have practically enriched your ‘wisdom’ for guiding and advising students?
Joseph: O, that’s a very important question! It has not always been easy. So far, I have talked about the high points, but there were low points too. One of the biggest challenges for me was financial. Having been brought up in a large African family and lived mostly in Ghana, resources were usually scarce. For example, during my bachelor’s degree, I have had to resort to unofficial part-time teaching of primary school children to supplement the financial support I received from my family. This hampered my concentration on my own studies. I have had to work extra hard as well as impose self-discipline. In addition, I had some powerful relatives and friends who encouraged and helped me out materially. Also, during my transition from technical education to the social sciences, I have had to grope in the limbo of uncertainty and confusion for some time until I had gathered enough guidance and inspiration from friends, family and mentors to make the decision and face up to the consequent challenges. Even later on during my PhD. studies in England, I have had to grapple with ‘killing four birds with one stone’! I was raising a young family, doing part-time lecturing, supporting my spouse in her postgraduate studies while pursuing the full-time PhD. It was a stressful self-imposed journey, to say the least. But through it all, I have developed creative endurance, pragmatism, self-motivation and experiential knowledge! It’s not always been easy! So when I talk about issues such as prioritizing, maintaining your motivation, having a dream, educating yourself, developing and using your memory power, I’m talking from experience rather than textbooks.
Interviewer: How relevant is your educational experience to the advice and inspiration you offer students?
Joseph: My experience demonstrates how possible it is to excel and have fun at the same time at university. It emphasizes the fact that you can choose your experience – that of excellence and fun or poor performance and dejection. My experience confirms the fact that you can overcome the obstacles and distractions on your way and turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones. In a real sense, my experience showcases some powerful ‘secrets’ of the journey of university education.
Interviewer: Now, to what extent are your ‘secrets’ and advice useful to students around the world?
Joseph: Well, I think I have had considerable encounters with students from across Europe, Africa and America. I have been in conferences, taught in summer schools and collaborated in research partnerships with students and colleagues across Europe, America, Africa and Asia. In all these interactions, I have come to see that despite cultural, geographical and institutional differences across settings, students have similar human challenges although of differing local and individual versions. For example, student self-organization and purposeful commitment carry the same importance across continents and universities. The need to personalize the education process is the same for all students. The need to maintain high levels of concentration and motivation for productive results is great in all countries I have been and interacted with students. So I strongly think my ‘secrets’ and advice for student excellence are useful to students internationally. Wherever you are, in whichever institution, and whatever your course of study is, you can adapt and apply the strategies and principles I suggest to you.
Interviewer: In your university experience, excellence and fun, which is more important?
Joseph: First of all, people have different ideas about what is ‘fun’. I have defined the word ‘fun’ in Chapter One. However going by the everyday sense of fun, you would agree with me that it’s easier to have fun than to excel, just as you would agree that excellence is more important than fun. Having fun is important, but perhaps not as important as excelling. It’s important to have fun, but fun that lasts must be backed by excellent performance. So the balance is to pursue excellence while you have fun along the way. As a friend usually says, “work hard and play hard”! The balance between excellence and fun is crucial and delicate, and not many students manage to achieve it. Due to improper guidance and lack of experience, only few students may be able to perform excellently while enjoying the whole experience of university.
Interviewer: Is there a short-cut to excellence?
Joseph: Yes, there is! Probably, most people would vehemently say “No, there’s no such thing as a short-cut to excellence”! But the irony is that, there’s indeed a short-cut to success in any area of life. It sounds funny on the surface, to hear that there’s ever a short-cut to success. The reality is, you can learn from those who have gone through what you’re going through. That is the purpose of coaching, counselling and mentorship. You do not necessarily have to go through all experiences to learn from them. In a real sense, you will not live long enough to have experienced everything for yourself and sometimes you might not live to tell the story after some experiences. So you can learn from those who have experienced some pain or pleasure, success or failure, mountains or valleys, highs or lows! I believe strongly that those who learn from their own experience are great, and those who learn from other people’s experience are greater. However, ultimately, those who learn from their own experience as well as the experience of others are the greatest! So, the shortcut to excellence is to learn principles from those who have experienced the things you are currently experiencing; take cues from those who sat where you sit; question those who know what you do not know. Of course, you must have your own unique experience of university. Certainly, you must jump full length into the waters to have a feel. However, they say forewarned is forearmed.
Interviewer: In summary, what would you say is the principal focus of this book, “How to Excel and Have Fun at University”?
Joseph: In brief, the focus of this book is to inform, inspire and involve students and learners in their educational journey, to achieve their dreams. The focus is to equip them with powerful principles of this important journey that determines the quality of their future lives. Principles are the keys to life. However, more than anything, this book is an inspirational spring. Sometimes, people ‘know’ what they must do. It is the inspirational springs they lack. So we all need some fire in our belly, to keep us moving.
Interviewer: Right! Can I therefore say that this book is not a textbook, but an inspirational book?
Joseph: Yes, this book is an inspirational students’ companion. It’s a companion because it delivers basic principles and the motivational substance that a student needs when they feel emotionally flat and mentally confused about what to do with their university experiences. The topics discussed give the reader unforgettable keys to reflect on. For example, students have often moaned about how to motivate themselves and sustain it, how to maintain their focus and concentration, “what to do” with their studies, to mention a few such whimpering. Among others, these are the topics this book has treated in an exciting way. So students should come on and get into exploring “How to Excel and Have Fun at University”. Their lives will never be the same.
Interviewer: Finally Joseph, how do you recommend that students approach reading this book?
Joseph: Good question! Well, I think the best way is to approach this book as a ‘companion’ in the sense of a source to turn to in search of guidance and inspiration at anytime. Readers can hop to any chapter that specifically addresses their needs at any particular time. They don’t necessarily have to read one chapter after the other serially as they do with novels or even textbooks. In view of the focus on inspiration, each chapter is designed to offer an independent treatment of its content. Therefore if the reader feels the need to imbibe ideas about how to maintain their motivation, they must feel free to jump to chapter X; if they want to find their way around maximizing lectures, tutorials, seminars and other meetings, they jump to chapter Y. All they need is an open mind and the will to pursue and apply these keys persistently and consistently to reap great results in their university experience.
Interviewer: OK, Joseph, thank you for taking the time to honour this interview session. It’s been really informative and inspiring listening to you this morning.
Joseph: Thank you too. It’s been a pleasure talking with you!
REMEMBER THIS BOOK IS COMING OUT SOON, SO LOOK OUT FOR IT!
