After graduation, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is a difficult but necessary stage. Let’s not forget how demanding it can be—from orientation camps to moving to an unfamiliar city, town, or village as your Place of Primary Assignment (PPA).
So, whether you are waiting to be posted, you’re serving already, or you’re about to round off, there are ways that NYSC prepares you for the professional world. You’ll learn the skills needed to deal with real-life situations. Let’s examine some of them here:
1. Problem solving
While serving, you’ll likely face challenges ranging from transportation and housing to any issues that make you feel inconvenient. These experiences teach you to assess and find ways out of a situation.
2. Adaptability
With NYSC in the picture, you’ll find yourself in environments you’ve never been in. Some will be positive, others challenging, but they will require that you change and learn how to cope with new realities—the people and the living conditions. In a professional setting, it is an asset for an individual to be flexible and thrive regardless of situations that could arise.
3. Effective communication
Another profound way NYSC prepares you for the professional world is through daily interactions with camp members, project members, housemates, or co-workers at your PPA. Being in such environments will help you learn how to communicate with people effectively – conveying your thoughts and listening attentively.
No one thrives in a workplace without the ability to communicate effectively because teamwork and interpersonal relations are essential elements in the real world.
4. Networking
NYSC brings people from different walks of life in contact with one another. It allows you to interact with them and them with you. The beautiful thing is that these people can become instrumental to your career success and life. They could be future employers, co-workers, potential investors, or business partners.
5. Resilience
To survive one year and also thrive while you’re at it, resilience is one skill that needs to be in the mix. It is one of the skills or ways NYSC prepares you for the professional world. It’s no news anymore that orientation camps can also be challenging.
However, the experience prepares one to work hard in challenging situations. It builds a work ethic, which helps one learn how to handle work, come what may.
Read Also: Top 6 NYSC Orientation Camps in Nigeria
6. Cohesion
You will see that NYSC prepares you for the professional world when you realise that being a corps member requires engaging in leadership positions or developing projects requiring teamwork. If you don’t know how to lead or work in a team, you’ll learn. In a professional world, you’ll be required to lead, work in a team, contribute to a team’s objectives, and actively commit to moving the team forward, and that’s pretty much what you’ll be faced with within your one year of service.
7. Emotional intelligence
NYSC opens you up to a cultural background that helps to develop your emotional intelligence. It often highlights how to relate to individuals with different backgrounds, personality types, and career choices. It will make you strive to understand why people behave the way they do and help you learn appropriate ways to respond.
8. Cultural awareness and tolerance
Being a corps member builds cultural tolerance in people and helps to manage issues of tribalism that could arise among people from different tribes and with different ways of life. NYSC prepares you for the professional world because you’ll have to work with people whose tribes differ from yours. It will help you to develop people skills and also improve emotional intelligence as a critical aspect of managing people in the workplace
9. Financial management
The government pays corps members a monthly wage, which would help instill wisdom in them about spending money. This skill is reflected in our daily lives and at work, which makes it an essential skill for one to have.
10. Personal growth and development
After a year of service, you would have moments of self-discovery, seeing that you have new strengths and passions and having a better understanding of the career path you want to take. NYSC prepares you for the professional world by setting you up for a year-long experience that triggers character development and growth.
Ultimately, serving is mandatory and challenging, but the skills you develop during NYSC are invaluable, and they can prepare you for your future career.
