How To Balance Your Business And School As An Entrepreneur In Nigeria
You can strike a great and profitable balance between your business and school as an entrepreneur or would-be entrepreneur in Nigeria. There are many would-be entrepreneurs and already existing entrepreneurs alike who think it is not feasible to combine their business and academic work. While you are waiting to complete schooling before venturing into that great business idea, some savvy entrepreneurs are jumping into a business while in school. The question is how they manage to effectively and efficiently combine both.
The answer to the aforementioned question is what this article hopes to provide for you. You don’t have to wait out those long school years before starting up your business venture in Nigeria. There are wonderful business ideas for students in university but because they wait to get done with school, such students miss out on lots of things. So if you have any of those business ideas to start at university, this article will guide you on how to combine your business and school.
Also read: Politics and entrepreneurship in Nigeria
There are lots of lucrative businesses a student can do in Nigeria; you don’t have to put your business on hold because of schooling. Doing business while studying is not a thing for aliens, you can do it and excel successfully without a doubt. All that is required is for you to understand the dos and don’ts regarding balancing your business and your academics.
Important Tips On How To Balance Your Business And School
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Figure Out What Your Priorities Are
While trying to balance your business and school activities, it is important that you know and understands your priorities. It is highly improbable for you to efficiently allocate your time equally between your business and academics. From experience, you can’t exactly have it both ways, although that is not impossible. It will be very difficult for you to have a high GPA and a profitable business while in school.
One will always give way for the other to truly flourish. I am not saying you should settle for carryovers in order to have a successful business. You sacrifice your high GPA in order to have a successful business while you make do with an average GPA. Running a business is almost like having a full-time job. You need to understand that something has to give way.
In the case where you don’t see a future with the business, meaning that you are just there to pass time, then your schooling takes priority. If you see your business as a career path after your schooling, then you must prioritize it ahead of your academics. When you see your academics as the future career path, then you need to prioritize it ahead of your business.
In fact, you can always take time off from school to pursue a truly unique and viable business idea but the reverse is not always the case.
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Create An Effective Time Table For Yourself
As a student, you are availed to the luxury of downtime which you will never have as a working professional to use to pursue your business idea. Structure your timetable in such a way that you will focus on your business or school at one given time. You can decide to strike the balance between your business and academics by selecting the day you go to school while you use other days to focus on your business. For instance, you choose to take classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday while the other days are set aside for your business
It is not enough to start one of those business ideas for students in University; you need to balance your business and school.
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Utilize University Resources Effectively
As a student, you will have access to facilities and people that you probably won’t have access to ordinarily. For example, as a student, you can seek advice from professors in your department at no cost at all. This is something you rarely have access to if you are not a student. Expert faculty members, student organizations etc are all at your fingertips. While I was an undergraduate, there was this classmate that was in the photography business. By virtue of her being a student, she received was always the person called upon to cover any programme organized by the department or faculty.
Also see: 5 businesses you can start in school to pay school fees in Nigeria
This is to tell you that as a student you will receive many preferential treatments and patronage for your business. The onus lies on you to completely maximize these university resources. If you are in search of co-founders, the university environment is the perfect place to build a wonderful team of like-minded people. So, it is evidently clear that you need to maximize university resources to be able to balance your business and school.
A school environment is a wonderful place where you can get startup capital for your business. Some universities in Nigeria hold business plan competitions that yield prize money or connect you with potential investors.
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Make Your Business Part Of Your School Work
To strike a good and quality balance between your business activities and school, you need to also find a way to make the business part of your schoolwork. You can go to the courses that support your business. This is a wonderful and great way to gain the knowledge you need to become a better entrepreneur. No matter your course of studies, you can make out time to take courses on entrepreneurship.
Make it your goal to find ways to use school work to help your business in Nigeria. You don’t have to make your business venture and school activities to be separate entities. It is will much easier for you to strike a balance between your business and school if they are integrated. This means you don’t have to approach one as separate from the other.
Conclusion
You have seen ways to create a good balance between your business and school. If you follow it religiously, you will definitely enjoy been an entrepreneur and a student at the same time. There are lots of business ideas to start at university and you can start taking these opportunities as they come. You don’t have to wait until you are done with school, you can be doing business while studying. All that you need is to strike that balance needed between your business and school.
