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 the pages of their textbooks.
The excursion was organised by Geotechnical Engineering lecturer and Chief Executive Officer of the Engineering Resource Academy, Dr. Omolola Adetona.
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 class to real-world engineering practice.
“Over the years, we’ve discovered that young engineers are not living up to expectations as compared with sustainability of our profession,” Dr. Adetona said at the Lekki head office of Metrospeed Group before being taken to the project site. She explained that she organised the visit to show students that civil engineering was a living, evolving discipline that extended 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 sit in the class and write 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.
For Metrospeed Group’s Head of Sales and Marketing, Emike Ntiokiet, the visit was as much about inspiring the next generation of engineers as it was about showcasing the company’s vision.
She challenge the students to think beyond the industry’s status quo, arguing that Lagos’s expanding population and mounting housing deficit demanded a fundamentally different approach to development.
“In the nearest future, it’s not going to be enough to just have a structure. What will stand out are your infrastructures, not just the beautiful houses anymore. So that’s why we are very big on this,” she said.
Ntiokiet also framed the visit as an expression of Metrospeed’s broader commitment to nurturing talent, pledging that the company would continue to open its doors to engineering students and young graduates 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 the society, especially to engineering students,” she said.
At the project site, Engineer Abdulhameed Salahudeen reinforced the message, making the case for more frequent industry exposure among engineering undergraduates and recommending project site visits at least three times per semester.
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