As I come to the end of my stay at the University of Cape Coast, I keep thinking about the version of me who entered tertiary school with hope, pressure, confusion, and that quiet belief that if I simply worked hard enough, everything would arrange itself nicely.

That version of me was not wrong. Hard work matters. But tertiary school taught me something more complicated: competition does not only reward the most intelligent person in the room. It rewards the person who understands the game early.

And the painful part is that nobody really sits you down in Level 100 and says, “These are the rules.” You just enter the system, make mistakes, watch people move ahead, catch small lessons late, and then one day you are almost leaving and thinking, “Ah. So this is how it works?”

University of Cape Coast Central Administration Block in Cape Coast, Ghana
University of Cape Coast Central Administration Block. Image: Adam Tuferu via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Competition in tertiary school is not one thing

Before university, many of us are trained to think of competition as a simple academic race. Who gets the best grades? Who tops the class? Who is the “shark”? Who can answer questions fast? That kind of competition exists, of course. If you are in school and you ignore academics completely, you are basically trying to cook jollof without rice. Bold, but unserious.

But tertiary school has several competitions happening at the same time. There is the academic competition. There is the social competition. There is the leadership competition. There is the opportunity competition. There is the confidence competition. There is even the quiet competition of who can stay mentally stable while carrying pressure from home, school fees, relationships, future plans, and the terrifying question of “what next?”

The mistake many students make is thinking they are only competing in the classroom. Meanwhile, other people are building networks, volunteering, learning skills, applying for internships, starting projects, getting mentors, asking questions, entering rooms, and making themselves visible. By the time results come, the scoreboard is bigger than GPA.

Rule one: grades matter, but grades alone are not the whole story

I will never advise anyone to joke with grades. That would be terrible advice, especially in a system where academic performance can affect national service placement, scholarships, postgraduate opportunities, and how people initially judge your seriousness.

But I have also learnt that grades are not the only currency. In tertiary school, your ability to communicate, collaborate, lead, solve problems, and show evidence of what you can do matters deeply. A transcript can open a door, but it may not keep you in the room if you cannot think clearly, speak confidently, or show initiative.

If I could go back, I would still study hard. But I would also build proof. I would document my projects earlier. I would create a stronger portfolio from the beginning. I would stop waiting until I felt “ready” before showing my work. In school, the people who grow fastest are not always the ones who know everything. Sometimes they are the ones willing to be seen learning in public.

Rule two: visibility is not arrogance

This one took me time. Some of us were raised to believe that if you are good, people will automatically notice. So we become quiet. We do the work silently. We hope someone will discover us like hidden treasure.

But tertiary school does not always reward hidden treasure. Sometimes it rewards the person who raises their hand, joins the team, asks the lecturer after class, speaks during meetings, posts their work, follows up, and reminds people that they exist.

Visibility is not the same as noise. You do not have to become loud, fake, or desperate. But you do have to let people know what you care about and what you are capable of. There is nothing noble about being talented and completely invisible.

If I had understood this earlier, I would have spoken up sooner. I would have asked more questions. I would have let people associate my name with the things I was building, learning, and trying to understand. Because in many rooms, people do not recommend the best person they have never noticed. They recommend the capable person they remember.

Rule three: not everybody is competing for the same prize

This is where comparison becomes dangerous. In tertiary school, it is very easy to look at someone else and feel behind. Someone is winning elections. Someone is getting perfect grades. Someone is building a business. Someone is always dressed like life has never touched them. Someone is travelling, earning money, getting attention, or somehow managing to look peaceful in the middle of academic chaos.

But not everybody is running the same race. Some people came to school mainly to get a strong class. Some came to build social capital. Some came to discover themselves. Some came to survive. Some came with family support. Some came with pressure you cannot see. Some are building slowly because their path requires patience.

If you copy everyone’s race, you will lose your own. That is one of the biggest traps in tertiary school. You can spend four years reacting to other people’s lives and never actually design your own.

If I could live differently, I would define my own scoreboard earlier. What do I want to be known for? What skills must I leave with? What kind of people should know me? What opportunities fit my future? What habits are quietly destroying me? These questions matter because if you do not define success for yourself, campus will define it for you, and campus can be very dramatic.

Rule four: your circle can accelerate you or quietly shrink you

One thing tertiary school teaches very quickly is that friends are not just people you laugh with. They are an environment. They influence what you think is normal, what you attempt, what you fear, how you spend time, and whether your ambition feels possible or embarrassing.

Some friends make you sharper. They tell you about opportunities. They correct you. They challenge your excuses. They remind you to submit the assignment. They make you feel that becoming better is not strange.

Other circles are comfortable but costly. Everything becomes gossip, vibes, procrastination, and complaining. Nobody is evil. Nobody is intentionally ruining anybody. But the group slowly trains you to aim lower.

If I had known better earlier, I would have been more intentional about my circle. Not snobbish. Not fake-deep. Just intentional. I would have asked myself, “After spending time with these people, do I feel clearer or more confused? Do I feel pushed forward or pulled into delay?”

Rule five: discipline beats occasional brilliance

There is a certain kind of student who can do magic under pressure. They wait until the last minute, disappear into stress, then somehow produce work that is not embarrassing. Many of us have been that person before. It can feel powerful for a while.

But last-minute brilliance is expensive. It costs sleep, peace, consistency, and sometimes quality. Tertiary school rewards the person who can keep showing up even when motivation is missing. That means attending class when you do not feel like it, starting the assignment before panic enters the chat, saving money before you are broke, and building skills before you urgently need them.

Discipline is not glamorous. It is usually boring. But it compounds. The person who reads small every week will usually defeat the person who performs academic gymnastics three nights before exams. The person who builds a skill for six months will usually pass the person who only gets serious when an opportunity appears.

Rule six: leadership is useful, but it can also become a beautiful distraction

Tertiary school gives you many chances to lead: associations, halls, departments, committees, cadet spaces, project teams, church groups, clubs, societies, and informal groups. Leadership can teach you things the classroom may never teach properly: responsibility, pressure, communication, conflict, planning, and how people behave when money, power, or recognition enters the room.

But leadership can also swallow your time if you are not careful. You can become so available to everyone that you become unavailable to your own future. You can attend every meeting, solve every problem, carry every responsibility, and still end the semester wondering why your own work is suffering.

If I could do it again, I would still lead. But I would set clearer boundaries. I would ask: what is this role teaching me? What will I have to show for it? Is this responsibility aligned with where I am going, or am I just afraid to say no?

Service is good. But self-abandonment is not service. It is just poor management wearing a noble outfit.

Rule seven: asking for help early is a competitive advantage

Many students suffer quietly because they think asking for help makes them look weak. So they hide confusion. They pretend to understand. They avoid lecturers. They fear seniors. They wait until the problem becomes a crisis.

But the students who ask early often move faster. They get clarification before wasting time. They learn from people who have already made the mistake. They discover opportunities earlier. They build relationships without even realizing it.

If I had understood this earlier, I would have asked more. Not in a lazy way, where you want people to think for you, but in a serious way. I would have asked lecturers about expectations. I would have asked seniors about courses and internships. I would have asked skilled friends how they learnt what they knew. Pride is expensive in school. Confusion plus silence is even worse.

How I would have lived differently

If I could restart my stay in UCC with the knowledge I have now, I would live with more intention and less panic.

I would build a portfolio from Level 100. Not because I would know exactly what career I wanted, but because evidence matters. I would save my best assignments, document projects, write reflections, build small things, volunteer strategically, and create proof of growth.

I would choose friends more carefully. I would still laugh, enjoy campus, and live like a human being, because school should not turn anybody into a machine. But I would pay attention to who makes me better and who keeps me small.

I would speak up more. I would stop assuming that humility means hiding. I would allow people to know my interests, my work, and my ambitions.

I would learn money earlier. Many students are academically serious but financially unprepared. We know theories, definitions, and frameworks, but we do not know how to price our skills, avoid bad spending habits, or build small income streams. That gap becomes loud after school.

I would rest without guilt. This one sounds soft, but it is serious. Burnout can make a brilliant person look unserious. Rest is not laziness when it helps you return with clarity.

Most importantly, I would stop waiting for perfect confidence. Confidence often comes after action, not before it. You do not become ready by overthinking your life in silence. You become ready by trying, failing, adjusting, and trying again.

What I want younger students to understand

If you are still early in tertiary school, do not waste the privilege of time. Time is the one thing final-year students suddenly respect with their full chest.

Do not only chase grades. Chase competence. Do not only chase popularity. Build credibility. Do not only join groups. Build relationships. Do not only complain about the system. Learn how the system works, then use that knowledge wisely.

Also, do not let competition make you bitter. Some people will move faster than you. Some will get opportunities you wanted. Some will seem lucky. Some will be louder. Some will be connected. That is life. But bitterness is a terrible strategy. It steals energy you could have used to build.

The better response is to study the game without losing yourself. Learn from people without worshipping them. Compete without becoming cruel. Ambition is good, but ambition without character can turn you into someone you would not even respect.

Leaving with clearer eyes

As I come to the end of my stay in UCC, I do not think the lesson is that I should have been perfect. Nobody lives university perfectly. We all misread some rooms, waste some time, trust some wrong people, delay some important decisions, and learn some lessons late.

But maybe that is the point. Tertiary school is not only a place where you collect a certificate. It is a place where you meet yourself under pressure. You discover what you do when nobody is forcing you. You learn whether you can manage freedom. You learn whether your ambition is real or just something you say when you are inspired.

If I had known the rules earlier, I would have lived more deliberately. I would have built sooner, asked sooner, shown up sooner, rested better, chosen better, and stopped confusing silence with humility.

Still, I am grateful for the lesson. Some lessons arrive late, but they still arrive with value. And if this reflection helps one student understand the game earlier than I did, then maybe the late lesson has done its work.

Because in tertiary school, competition is not just about beating people. Sometimes the real competition is between the version of you that is drifting and the version of you that finally decides to live on purpose.

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