The Road Not Taken: Prefectship Dreams and the Importance of Preparation

Being a school prefect is an honorary position in schools, and so most people aspire to be one at a different point in school. In the school that I attended, however, it was more than just an honorary position; it came with power and a lot of perks.

I attended a military school for secondary school. Many things about being in the military were reflected in my school, and that included authority. To some degree, a higher class in school gives respect and power to one.

Every day, most people prayed to be seniors someday, so that they could be liberated from the lifestyle of being a junior, as that usually came with a lot of hardship.

The penultimate year, SS2, was very crucial for leadership positions when I was in secondary school. It was that year when prefects would be chosen to take over from the outgoing seniors in the final year, SS3, as well as other responsibilities in other organisational bodies in the school.

There were all kinds of prefects—food, assembly, laboratory, library, health—but the one I aspired for was to be the I.C.T. prefect for my set.

There wasn't exactly a process to go about being a prefect at that time. It wasn't like we would get forms to fill out an application and vie for certain positions. It was mostly the school authorities that handled the selection process. There were a few things one could do to influence that, though.

I had quite a number of guardians when I was in school. I was an upstanding student, the kind that never got into trouble, and I was pretty much a favourable one. And so I told some of them that I would like to be a prefect. I had the I.C.T. prefectship in mind, but I didn't mind being the library prefect instead. I spent a lot of time in the library anyway.

There were unwritten criteria for prefect positions, however. The criteria weren't something written as a prerequisite to becoming a prefect, but they were basic necessities. I didn't meet some of them, but they weren't supposed to matter, or so I thought.

You see, I joined my colleagues in their fourth year at that school, SS1. And somehow, being in that school way longer, such as since JSS1 (the first year), was a big advantage. I had to be a really brilliant and outstanding student to nullify this conceptual requirement.

I was an average student. In fact, I was below average, but I was just beginning to drastically improve with my academics around the time I vied for prefectship positions, so I hoped that that would count.

The day came for the announcement of the new prefects, and then what I feared would happen eventually did: My name wasn't mentioned at all.

What did I expect, really? To be picked over by people who were better than me academically, had been here for a long time, and were deeper rooted in the school's dynamics than I was? Surely, I was self-deprecating at that point, but there was a lesson to learn. Before that, however, I'll share a similar thing that happened shortly afterwards.

A lot of handovers of positions were happening around that time, and it happened that the pentecostal church we attended then was going to do the same. I wasn't looking into getting any positions there, but someone else wanted me to.

An immediate senior and friend reached out to me and gave me signs that I was going to be selected for one leadership role in church. He didn't spell it out, but it was obvious that he had put my name down to take over from him. I don't remember the position, sadly.

I didn't know what to think of all that, but I looked forward to hearing my name mentioned. Lo and behold, that day came, and yet again, my name wasn't mentioned. This time, I was shocked and devastated. But I learned something else too. Apparently, my name had been changed by someone else who didn't know me well enough for the position.

In those moments of disappointment, I learned the importance of preparation and the essence of not raising one's expectations so high.

If I had been very hardworking like some of my colleagues that were selected as prefects and had been outstanding like them, I may have been more qualified than I was at that time. What that spurred in me was to take my academics more seriously. There was nothing I could do anymore to earn prefectship, but I learned to do better for myself, and that stuck with me.

And as for raising my hopes, well, I still do that sometimes now and feel let down, but we learn to do better every day, don't we? I try to think of the worst that could happen in any circumstance, so I can brace myself for it if it happens or feel more fulfilled if the desired results happen instead.

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In a nutshell, those experiences, and more to follow, taught me to be better for myself. Preparedness is very key and can easily turn into success when the opportunity comes. And over-anticipating can be a dangerous position to put oneself in.