A Nigerian nurse popularly known as Hajara Nurse on TikTok has stirred widespread reactions after advising university aspirants to avoid studying pure science courses such as Biology, Biochemistry and Microbiology unless they have strong family connections.
In a viral video shared on the social media platform obtained by The News Chronicle on Saturday, Hajara disclosed that she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology before later returning to school to study nursing.
“I know a lot of you don’t know that I have like a degree in biology before I went back to nursing school,” she said.
According to her, the difficult job market for life science graduates in Nigeria convinced her to change careers.
“If you know your family is not very strong and you don’t have connections or anything, you have no business studying certain courses. And one of those courses is biology,” she said.
Recounting her experience after completing the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Hajara claimed that prospective employers often lost interest once they saw her academic qualification.
“No one wants to hire you. If you tell them B.Sc. Biology, then you’ll just see their face just drop. It’s like, you and them know that, okay, there’s no hope,” she said.
The experience, she explained, prompted her to enroll in nursing school, a decision she described as one of the best she had made.
“I saw that with the biology degree that I had in Nigeria, I don’t have any prospect. That was one of my major push to go back to nursing school, and I’m so happy that I was able to do that,” she added.
She ended the video with a strong warning to prospective students, urging them to reconsider courses such as Biology, Biochemistry and Microbiology.
“If you get courses like biology, biochemistry, microbiology, please don’t just skip it. Skip it. I know a lot of people might want to come for me, but I know what I’m saying. This, I’m saying from experience,” she said.
The video has since generated heated discussions on TikTok, with many graduates of biology-related disciplines sharing similar experiences of unemployment and underemployment, while others defended the importance of pure science degrees, noting that they remain valuable for research, academia and postgraduate studies.
