NIGERIANS ARE THE MOST EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS IN THE US!

IN AMERICA, DATA SHOW NIGERIANS ARE THE MOST EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
By Leslie Casimir

• In America, Nigerians' education pursuit is above the rest
• Whether driven by immigration or family, data show more earn degrees

For Woodlands resident David Olowokere, one of Nigeria's sons, having a Master's degree in engineering just wasn't enough for his people back home. So he got a doctorate.
Nigerian David Olowokere, chairman of TSU's engineering technologies department, says the goal for his children is to do "as good as us — if not better."

ERIC KAYNE: CHRONICLE
His wife, Shalewa Olowokere, a civil engineer, didn't stop at a bachelor's, either. She went for her master's.
The same obsession with education runs in the Udeh household in Sugar Land. Foluke Udeh and her husband, Nduka, both have master's degrees. Anything less, she reckons, would have amounted to failure.
"If you see an average Nigerian family, everybody has a college degree these days," said Udeh, 32, a physical therapist at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center. "But a post-graduate degree, that's like pride for the family."
Nigerian immigrants have the highest levels of education in this city and the nation, surpassing whites and Asians, according to Census data bolstered by an analysis of 13 annual Houston-area surveys conducted by Rice University.
Although they make up a tiny portion of the U.S. population, a whopping 17 percent of all Nigerians in this country held master's degrees while 4 percent had a doctorate, according to the 2006 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. In addition, 37 percent had bachelor's degrees.

In comparison
To put those numbers in perspective, 8 percent of the white population in the U.S. had master's degrees, according to the Census survey. And 1 percent held doctorates. About 19 percent of white residents had bachelor's degrees. Asians come closer to the Nigerians with 12 percent holding master's degrees and 3 percent having doctorates.
The Nigerian numbers are "strikingly high," said Roderick Harrison, demographer at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that specializes in researching black issues. "There is no doubt that these are highly educated professionals who are probably working in the petrochemical, medical and business sectors in Houston."
Harrison analyzed the census data for the Houston Chronicle.
Stephen Klineberg, a sociologist at Rice University who conducts the annual Houston Area Survey, suspects the percentage of Nigerian immigrants with post-graduate degrees is higher than Census data shows.
Of all the Nigerian immigrants he reached in his random phone surveys 1994 through 2007 — 45 households total — Klineberg said 40 percent of the Nigerians said they had post-graduate degrees.
"These are higher levels of educational attainment than were found in any other ... community," Klineberg said.
There are more than 12,000 Nigerians in Houston, according to the latest Census data, a figure sociologists and Nigerian community leaders say is a gross undercount. They believe the number to be closer to 100,000.
Staying in school
The reasons Nigerians have more post-graduate degrees than any other racial or ethnic group are largely due to Nigerian society's emphasis on mandatory and free education. Once immigrating to this country, practical matters of immigration laws get in the way.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 made it easier for Africans to enter the U.S., but mostly as students or highly skilled professionals — not through family sponsorships, Klineberg said.
So many Africans pursue higher levels of education as an unintended consequence of navigating the tricky minefield of immigration, said Amadu Jacky Kaba, an associate professor at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., who has done research on African immigrants in the U.S.
"In a way, it's a Catch-22 — because of immigration laws you are forced to remain in school, but then the funny thing is you end up getting your doctorate at the age of 29," Kaba said. "If you stay in school, immigration will leave you alone."
Although Kaba, who teaches Africana Studies, is not from Nigeria (he is Liberian), he said he, too, found himself pursuing a master's and then a doctorate to remain in this country legally.
But not all Africans have to go this route. Some say their motivation is driven by their desire to overcome being a double minority: black and African.
Take Oluyinka Olutoye, 41, associate professor of pediatric surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. He came to this country already as a medical doctor but decided to pursue his doctorate in anatomy to help set himself apart.
"Being black, you are already at a disadvantage," said Olutoye, whose wife, Toyin Olutoye, is an anesthesiologist at Baylor. "You really need to excel far above if you want to be considered for anything in this country."

Family expectations
All this talk of education creates high expectations for children of Nigerian immigrants. The eldest child of David Olowokere, chairman of the engineering technologies department at Texas Southern University, for example, is already working on her master's degree in public health in Atlanta; the middle child is pursuing a bachelor's in pre-medicine. His youngest, a son, attends The Woodlands High School. He already has aspirations to go into engineering, just like his parents, Olowokere beams.
"The goal is for them to do as good as us — if not better," he said.
Oluyinka Olutoye put it another way, "The typical saying in a Nigerian household is that the best inheritance that a parent can give you is not jewelry or cash or material things, it is a good education," he said. "It is expected."

© 2008 Houston Chronicle

Of Creativity and Facts

Hullo!

This is actually from a dear friend and I thought I'd share it on this forum. I don't know who the original author is but it's amazing when you think of how creative guys can sometimes be with some factual elements of life which we either take for granted or choose to pretend are non-existent. What do you think about the definition of POLITICIAN, CRIMINAL and E.T.C? Here you go...

GLOSSARY OF TERMS


School: A place where Papa pays and Son plays.

Life Insurance: A contract that keeps you poor all your life so that you can die Rich.

Nurse: A person who wakes u up to give you sleeping pills.

Marriage: It's an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor degree and a woman gains her masters.

Divorce: Future tense of Marriage.

Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine willpower is defeated by feminine waterpower.

Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the Lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through "the minds of either"

Conference: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.

Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.

Dictionary: A place where success comes before work.

Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody disagrees later on.

Father: A banker provided by nature.

Criminal: A guy no different from the rest....except that he got caught.

Boss: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.

Politician: One who shakes your hand before elections and your Confidence after.

Doctor: A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you by bills.

Classic: Books, which people praise, but do not read.

Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.

Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.

Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.

Etc.: A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually do.

Committee: Individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to decide that nothing can be done together.

Experience: The name men give to their mistakes.

Atomic Bomb: An invention to end all inventions.

Philosopher: A fool who torments himself during life, to be spoken of when dead

Keep the definition if "Smile" in your heart and let it translate into action.

Catch ya!

Lessons in Entrepreneurship

I managed to squeeze out time today to update/conclude on the topic I delved into in my last post. By the way, a big “thank you” to all of you who took out time to send me feedbacks on that post (even the ones I considered “annoying”).

What does it take to be an entrepreneur?

The word “Entrepreneur” is a borrowed French word which was first defined by Richard Cantillon, the Irish economic theorist with a Spanish name who lived in France. He is regarded by historians as the first great Economics theorist. Subsequent development of the definition of this word/concept in academic circles led to a widely accepted definition of the entrepreneur as an individual who efficiently combines and manages the factors of production to create new wealth-producing resources or endows existing resources with enhanced potential to create wealth (Entrepreneurship, A contemporary approach, 4th Edition). Having set this background of definition, I may as well just close the topic and allow your intelligent minds to make the pragmatic deductions. Entrepreneurship entails the use or if you like, management of the factors of production to create wealth. Factors of production include Land, Labour and Capital. For combination to occur at least two entities must be involved.

Several theories and myths surround the concept of entrepreneurship and what it takes to be an entrepreneur. General perceptions (although debatable) among modern economists is that entrepreneurs are “risk-hungry”. Arguably, businesses that yield the most returns are the ones that can be described as “high-risk” ventures. Successful entrepreneurs would take risks but NOT with the attitude of a gambler. The Schumpeterian entrepreneur is vigilant. He watches and screens his market before undertaking a risk. He uses one major skill - his power of intuition to surprise his competitors. The 20th century saw this entrepreneur flourish in Germany and the U.S. and he still exists in today’s 21st century. The entrepreneur, according to Schumpeter’s model is vigilance incarnate. In selecting a business enterprise, he inspects, screens, selects, he adapts and then couples his available resources to make the enterprise work and yield the desired result(s). He takes risks but never gambles. He researches his market and is never afraid to give something to gain something. His decisions are guided by a thorough accumulation of knowledge in his area of interest and possible pros and cons of his decisions. One of the failure triggers in any enterprise is a mish-mash of all sorts of decisions which cannot wait

The entrepreneur brings market and technology together at the corridor of entrepreneurship. He uses his ideas and in most cases, combines his ideas with other people’s ideas to reconstruct the economy within his locality through persistence and ability to anticipate. His ability to anticipate opens his eyes to opportunities which he certainly converts into action that would yield practical results to meet a specific need. This is called innovation.

Innovation entails bringing two different worlds (Market and Technology) together and so it is not as simple as it sounds. This is because the two elements being married evolve in an unpredictable way. It is like firing a shot in the dark or better still, firing a rocket from a platform whose coordinates are poorly calculated into a planet whose trajectory we do not have an idea of.

For innovation to be meaningful and yield the desired results, the entrepreneur must not compromise “learning as you go”. For example, after learning through several trials that functionality and profitability of fuel cells depends on catalysts which were not fully developed in the 20th century, the electric vehicle was deemed a project which realistically may not see the light of the day before the end of that century. Innovation has failed and continued to fail because so-called entrepreneurs spend more time learning and reading about managing innovation and pay less attention to lessons which can be learnt from causes and reasons for failure(s) of a venture. An innovation is said to have succeeded if it satisfies a demand. It is against this background that the facilitator be described as an entrepreneur. The price of your invention matters little; follow the market and your target consumers and you’ll certainly be counting your gains, financially and in terms of satisfaction.

To innovate is to change the consumer. Research and identify your market. Identify a need within that market and create a product that will change your consumers. But once the rules of the game are reversed, the cards redistributed, the change may actually bifurcate and put you right in the palms of your competitor(s). Innovation is created by instability and unpredictability which no method, however refined will be able to master in its entirety. Uncertainties involved in innovation include (a) Decision priority (b) Cost (c) Market fluctuations. (d) Consumer behaviour

The customer (consumer) is said to be king, but of an empire whose boundaries are poorly defined and whose laws can be described as vague. This is why market research and the power of intuition are necessary tools in entrepreneurship.

Based on the foregoing, I’ll surmise that any individual entrepreneur needs all or most of the following skills for a successful entrepreneurship;

1. Insight
2. Intuition
3. Sense of anticipation
4. Quick reaction to changes in the environment
5. Skills in the target enterprise