The Nigerian-Canadian Engineering Student
An Interview with David – a Nigerian Canadian college student majoring in Engineering
What was it like immigrating to Canada from Nigeria?
It was definitely a huge change in environment. And also, you see so many different colors of people when in Nigeria, you only see Black people. Whenever we saw people with fair skin in Nigeria, we treated them more preciously—almost like they came from heaven. But coming here, I think that kind of dialed off for me, since it’s very common to see fair-skinned people around in Canada. However, one thing that remained the same for me is hearing so many different languages because there are also a lot of languages in Nigeria.
What was school like in Nigeria?
Schools in Nigeria are very harsh and make you cram a lot of information. I mean, the teachers are great, but they don’t understand absolutely everything they teach. Also, because there are so many languages in Nigeria, it was also difficult to explain the material coherently to the students. So, yeah, we had to cram a lot of information before exams. I think the education in Nigeria was harder than it is in Canada in that way, since we didn’t get many practical experiences and had to cram concepts. Also, everyone was required to learn really hard maths, so even Arts students had to learn things like vectors.
Considering your experience of immigrating, how do you view yourself in the Nigerian community? Do you think you’re now more a Canadian-Nigerian than purely Nigerian?
I see myself more as a purely Nigerian person, because I lived in Nigeria for most of my life. My family also mostly eats Nigerian food but not a lot of Canadian food.
What would you say a typical Nigerian person is like?
They definitely love football. They would love to watch Fifa and the World Cup. My favorite thing to do back in Nigeria was to play Football with my friends. When I was younger, we used to host small tournaments in my neighborhood.
What is the community in Nigeria like?
It’s very tightknit. There was this one time when there was a snake in our house, and some people around the neighborhood came by to help us remove the snake. It was a really, really big snake, but they still helped us.