Undergraduates at ‘Lagos Ready Set work’ tutored on mentorship
A legal luminary, Mr. Gbenga Oyebode, has cautioned Nigerian undergraduates to be very careful of people they choose as their role models, saying not all those that appear on the pages of newspapers are truly worthy to be emulated in anyway.
He gave the warning at the weekend at the ongoing Lagos ‘Ready Set Work’ (RSW) training programme holding simultaneously at the three designated centres-University of Lagos, UNILAG, Akoka; Lagos State University, LASU, Ojo and the Lagos State Polytechnic, LASPOTECH, Ikorodu.
RSW is an entrepreneurship and employability concept of the Lagos State government designed for final year students in the tertiary schools in the state to hone their knowledge, skills and attitudes ahead of graduation. The scheme entered its second season this year and will run for 13 weeks.
Speaking at the mentorship session on Saturday at the LASPOTECH centre on the topic See change as an opportunity to improve your life,” Oyebode told the students who are from UNILAG, LASU, LASPOTECH, AOCOED, LASCOHET and MOCPED, that all they need to do was to choose only successful people with clean (and not dubious) integrity in all ramifications as their mentors.
He however told them that they would not necessary need to inform those type of people irrespective of where they are from across the globe as their mentors before (and nor even after) they start following their footsteps to success in their chosen fields.
Oyebode, who is the managing partner of Aluko and Oyebode & Co, a law firm, also told participants to always be truthful and innovative in doing things so as to get better and desired results and be committed strongly to any good course they believe in.
Speaking at LASU’s centre on the same day, the Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Urban Development, Mrs. Yetunde Onabule, took participants through similar lecture with that of Oyebode.
She spoke on “Mastering soft skills for workplace engagement,” saying they would, just like hard skills, need to develop soft skills such as emotional intelligence, self-esteem, self-management, integrity, good communication and problem-solving, time management, spirit of team work or work alone, and strong work ethics, etc, to become successful in their career and other aspects of life. She said they would have to develop all these virtues gradually until they gain mastery of them.
Onabule’s counterpart in Education, whose office designed the RSW concept, Mr. Obafela Bank-Olemoh restated that every participant must meet 87.5 percent class attendance and complete all the take-home assignments before he or she is certified as graduate of the scheme.
Some of the participants including Oluwatobi Adeosun from UNILAG and Irene Alade from LASPOTECH said their perceptions about career paths, success and life generally had been brightened up by day through the programme.
They said unlike before, they could now see hope of becoming highly successful in whatever career paths they choose after graduation and commended the Lagos government for putting up the free but rigorous training for them.
