As part of efforts to ensure that Nigeria’s budding engineers gain practical exposure to the realities of their profession, Metrospeed has hosted civil engineering students from Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH) at the Metro Smart City Project site in Lekki, Lagos State.
During the visit to the expansive 97-hectare lagoon-front development, the students experienced firsthand the practical side of engineering beyond the walls of their classrooms and pages of their textbooks.
Geotechnical Engineering lecturer and Chief Executive Officer of the Engineering Resource Academy, Dr Omolola Adetona, organised the excursion.
According to her, the field trip was organised to give the students firsthand experience of large-scale construction projects and enable them to relate the theories learned in the classroom to the real-world engineering practice.
She said that the visit was organised to show the students that civil engineering is a living and evolving discipline that extends far beyond lecture notes and whiteboards.
“There is a need to expose them to the environment. They need to see that civil engineering is going far. Studying engineering is not just about sitting in the classroom and writing on the board ; they need to see what the Y and the X they’re learning is turning out to be in the environment,” she added.
According to Metrospeed Group’s Head of Sales and Marketing, Emike Ntiokiet, the visit was about inspiring the next generation of engineers, as well as showcasing the company’s vision.
She, therefore, urged the students to think beyond the industry’s status quo, saying that Lagos’ expanding population and mounting housing deficit require a fundamentally different approach to development.
Ntiokiet also framed the visit as an expression of Metrospeed’s broader commitment to nurturing talents, pledging that the company would continue to open its doors to engineering students and young graduates who are eager to contribute to Nigeria’s built environment.
“Metrospeed is big on capacity building and it is part of the ways to give back to society, especially the engineering students,” she said.
However, at the project site, Abdulhameed Salahudeen advocated frequent industry exposure among engineering undergraduates and project site visits at least three times per semester.
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