Chukwuzubelu Ufodike, an assistant professor at Texas A&M University in the United States of America is one of Nigeria’s scholars who wish that the country was a better place for them to thrive.
In this interview with Tony Manuaka, he draws a line between the education system in Nigeria and what obtains in America. And as technology continues to advance, Dr Ufodike explains why he is pushing for Blacks in Additive Manufacturing, a new frontier where he wants Nigerians and Africans in general to be adequately represented as it gains momentum.
He also shares his experience on some of the bottlenecks that discourage Nigerian professionals living abroad from returning to the country, even when the offers seem to be better.
Take us through your academic journey from the Federal University of Technology, Owerri and the University of Lagos until you arrived at the Texas A&M University
I schooled in Nigeria before I went to the United States for my PhD. After that, I transitioned into academia. This is my fifth year in academia. So far, so good. I’m enjoying it. Hopefully, I will keep striving and keep inspiring young minds and young Africans so that they can become internationally acclaimed scholars.
What actually gives you joy; is it the fact that you live in Texas or the job you’re doing there?
My joy comes from life itself, even being at peace with myself and doing what I enjoy to do best, which is to empower and mentor young minds like myself. I’ve done a lot of mentorship because my path wasn’t too smooth. So I find myself helping people to go through the same path but without much huddles to let them know where the bottlenecks are before they get there so that they don’t screw themselves up.
It’s difficult to connect the fact that you are an assistant professor at Texas A&M University at a young age with the fact that your path wasn’t smooth. How did it happen?
It’s a long story but where do we start from? It all started from just being fascinated by the way things work; having an engineering mindset as a kid. I was always fascinated by physics, chemistry, and how bonds are formed and how structures come together to make up an atom. And then, I went to the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, where I got my Bachelors in Materials and Metallurgical Engineering. And then I started working in the oil and gas sector. At that time, I was going to school while I was working. I did my masters in Process Engineering at the University of Lagos while I was working and also doing an MBA. I was doing two programmes while I was working. During that time, I realized that I had a passion for research. School was just something I was drawn to. So, I went to Florida State University to further my education again, and I dumped my day-time job, which was a little bit uncomfortable at the time, and became a full-time student. That was painful, but it was very interesting because that took me to the path of getting my PhD but first of all, my third masters degree which was in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, and later my PhD from Florida A&M University in the same Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. And that was how it all started. So when I applied for academic jobs and I got offers; I chose Texas A&M University. We are the largest university in the United States of America with about 80, 000 enrolled students before 2023.
For someone who began his education in Nigeria and is now an assistant professor in the United States, can you make an assessment of the Nigerian education system?
Absolutely! With my experience, five degrees from five different universities from two different countries from two ends of the world, I think I’m in a good position to make such an assessment. I was explaining to someone the difference between teaching and lecturing. In Nigeria, education from the undergraduate level is very theoretical from K12, that is, what we call in the United States, nursery to secondary school; that is kindergarten to SS3. So, from K12, we do teaching. And what that encompasses is that we are teaching the kids how to understand fundamentals but when you get into the university what you get is lecturing on concepts you should know. That is why you see some students struggling in the universities. In engineering, we advise that students should take what is known in Nigeria as Further Math before they get into any engineering programme because basically you need to know your calculus. Now the Nigerian educational system is theoretical; there’s no experimentation. And there is a lack of equipment that will enable you to carry out experimentation. To cut a long story short, coming to the United States, education is not just theoretical, there is hands-on experiment, you are going to use equipment, you are going to understand why you are doing it, and you are going to understand that this is applied. But guess what, I think that the reason a lot of Nigerians do well outside the country’s university system is because they already understand the theoretical concepts.
With your versed knowledge in engineering in the United States and your background back in the days as a worker in the Nigerian oil sector, don’t you think Nigeria needs you more than the United States?
In fact, I’m going to be 100 per cent honest with you. When I left this country, before I got my visa, I was asked, ‘Are you going to come back to this country?’ In all honesty, I answered, ‘Yes’, not because I was planning to migrate to a different country but because I actually wanted to gain the knowledge. But the rest is history. Nigeria has lost a lot of human resources like myself not because we do not want to come back to Nigeria to reinforce that learning but because Nigeria hasn’t created the foundation or the capacity to retain us. So, at this point, until that happens, Nigeria will continue to lose its best. Unfortunately, there are people who are ready to pay 200 times…but it’s not about the money, it’s more about one’s stability. I mean, I could easily work at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, but guess what? I visited Owerri a few days ago to give a lecture at my alma mater; I gave the same talk at the University of Lagos. I’ve not been to FUTO in many years but to get there, the roads were completely in a terrible shape. But somehow we were able to manoeuvre our way through some bush path to get into the university. And this is a federal university. If I work under that kind of atmosphere, I don’t think I will be as productive as I am today. That alone is already a bottleneck for me as a researcher. So I want an environment where I can strive.
You’ve been promoting educational consultancy through the Blacks in Advanced Additive Manufacturing. What is it all about?
I’m not promoting educational consultancy through Blacks in Additive Manufacturing. That is rather a product of Graduate Excel. So, BiAM is a non-profit organisation that is inspired by promoting and empowering under-represented groups specifically in Advanced Additive Manufacturing. Advanced Additive Manufacturing is strictly “printing”. It’s unlike conventional manufacturing like blowing, extrusion, or casting. Additive Manufacturing is new, so there is no adequate representation of black people in Additive Manufacturing. And that is how Blacks in Additive Manufacturing started. Currently, Blacks in Additive Manufacturing is sponsored by huge manufacturing organizations like the Society for Manufacturing Engineers, which is the largest manufacturing society in the world; and some other groups like the American Society of Manufacturing Engineering. Now, specifically if you are talking about my consultancy product, which is Graduate Excel; that goes back to the roadblocks and bottlenecks that I had in the past. And that started from when I realized that I wanted to study abroad. And I wanted to get a PhD in engineering but I didn’t know how to go about that. At a point there were little or no resources. This was about 14 to 15 years ago when I wanted to explore my graduate path. So I struggled and looked for resources on my own and I realised that I had to take the Graduate Record Examination; I found how to write a Statement of Purpose (SOP). These are documents you need to submit as part of your application. I did all that without any clear resource or help or mentorship or guardian. And that was really painful. So what the Graduate Excel does is that it creates a mentorship programme for aspiring scholars who are usually international students, specifically, African international students. We mentor them in writing personal statements, guiding them in resume writing and structuring application clearly in terms of what programme fits them best. Some students who want to do a masters or PhD are not so sure if they can get into the programmes right from undergraduate level. That is me giving back specifically to people in Africa to navigate the graduate school huddles.
Do you do this for a fee?
Yes, I mean, it’s my time, and I want to see commitments from prospective students as well because it’s a professional consultation. Of course I’m not part of any admission committee and as such I can’t guarantee that they will get any admission but I can assist them, making sure that their package is competitive because they are competing against other people from around the globe for the same spot. So they have to come out with highly competitive applications in order to get excellent reviews from the graduate committee.
What does it cost to access the Graduate Excel consultancy service?
It changes, but we have a management team that takes care of pricing. I’m not entirely sure I can give you the figures but if you go on my website, the products and pricing should be listed there. The pricing compares with those offered by people who are rendering similar services, but at this point, I don’t see any competitor because I’m the only one as far as I know, who can give real professional advice on what it actually takes to write a graduate school application because I’m right at the middle of the system. Because I’m in the system, I can give those ‘insider secrets’.
Does this mentorship also guarantee job opportunities for students in the United States?
Good question. This mentorship is not just limited to applying to university and post graduate mentorship. I could also mentor on resume revamping, professional consultation on career path options and mentor student and see how we can say, for instance people who read Economics or Business Finance and they want to transition to IT, I’m able to tell them the right courses they should do because you know, IT is a game changer because everyone is transitioning into that.
So what kind of responses have you been getting from Africa particularly from prospective scholars in Nigeria?
I’m not going to brag about this, but we just launched this officially in March or April this year, and there are a lot of followers on Instagram, Facebook and our other social media platforms. You need to see what our inbox looks like in terms of inquiries on how people can come into our mentorship programme. I think generally, Nigerians, Africans are very passionate in terms of pathways and options on how to study abroad.
