By Evangeline Anumba
If you are awaiting or have received your Mobilisation Letter, this is for you. NYSC Orientation camp can be exciting and stressful at the same time, but you just have to be prepared.
Just to be prepared and survive the process, you should have your student ID Card (original and photocopies), certificate /statement of results from your school (Original and 6 Photocopies), NYSC Call-up letter (Original and 6 photocopies), recent passport photograph, compulsory medical certificate from a government or military hospital showing health status.
Going to camp with the above listed documents and items will get you through your registration at the orientation camp, up to the point of collection of mattress and your NYSC KIT.
For safety sake, your bags will be searched thoroughly at the gate, so as to remove likely weapons or items harmful to other individuals. Items such as electric irons, forks, knives and more.
The registration process is a bit hectic but if you have your authentic documents at hand, it will be easier. Always ask questions to avoid mistakes. After registration, you collect your NYSC kits consisting of 2 round neck loosely fitted white T-shirts, 2 pair of white shorts, One NYSC crested vest, a pair of NYSC khaki (Jacket, Belt and trousers), a crested NYSC cap, a pair of Jungle boots, a pair of NYSC white tennis shoes. They are basically what you will wear throughout your stay, therefore the need to keep them safe by writing your initials on them with marker is advised.
Throughout your stay in the NYSC camp, you are meant to wake up as early as 4:00a.m. to get prepared as corps members are meant to be on the parade ground by 4:30a.m. Prayers are said at the parade ground, little bit of parade chants and marching before breakfast at 7am.fortunately, there are different entrepreneurship trainings that go on in camp and corps members are mandated to be part of one or two of them.
Interestingly, nearly every activity in the NYSC orientation camp is a competition with a prize to win or a score to rise to, having divided corps members into platoons and owning to the fact that one of the platoons will emerge the best at the end of the 21 days in camp.

Competitions ranging from sports, cooking, sanitation, parade marching, drama, dance, beauty pageant. These activities are fun and will give you the opportunity to participate in the one you deem fit.
Typically, there would be weird little tales to keep you and your friends amazed and thundering with laughter. Soldier-corper love affairs that you will definitely hear about, married men and women who take off their wedding rings to have fun, corpers who sleep with officials in a bid to get posted to a good place of primary assignment which they may never get.
Camp fire night is the climax of NYSC camp. It’s the almighty social night when you realise the camp wasn’t bad after all. You will also realise how much you are going to miss your new friends. Some lavish their first allowance of N19,800 that night.
Regardless, life starts after NYSC orientation camp. When you get posted to your Place of Primary Assignment (PPA) some will be posted in town, while others in village, some in schools, companies, ministries or commissions, and some will be rejected.

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Some won’t be given accommodation, some wouldn’t be paid by their employers, either way, corps members ought to obey the clarion call, under the rain or in the sun. Simply pray to get a good working environment and working conditions.