According to literature
opinions of late, saying ‘I have a
dream…’ brings out a lighter message than ‘I have an ambition…” in the context of striving for attainment. The
argument goes beyond to consider what the audience understands, rather than
just what the communicator intended to mean. It is said that dreams come to
someone’s mind especially when they are sleeping or just about to. They are
usually less significant to the subject and are quickly forgotten once one
quits the slumber unless they were nightmares. On the other hand, an ambition
is normally used for a desired achievement which makes it a better term than a
dream, at least according to me.
Long time ago, I had an ambition. A desire to be of
good service to myself, my people, my community, my country and the world in
general. All these amounted to the final destinations of my life struggle which
necessitated the proper formulation of strategies. After all, in order to reach
somewhere, one must pass through somewhere else. I always heard it from
different opinion-holders that once you get to the university, you have
succeeded in life. As a small child, too young to criticize, I was meant to
meekly believe this and subsequently subscribed to this opinion. The university
therefore became my academic focal point and I invested so much effort on it
than Heaven itself. I was driven by the question of, ‘if people are there, why not me?’
Another factor that
significantly raised my already high desire of one day being a university
student was the immense demand from family, relatives, friends and former
teachers. All these groups of people were for the opinion that if I do not work
hard and get to the university, I would have failed them completely. It came to
a point when I started wondering whether I am the only child or student with
that potential ability. I loved listening to people’s narratives about
university experience and I almost, but never, questioned whether some of them
were true or realistic. Most of the narrators were people I knew that they have
been to a university, whether as students, having attended a student’s
graduation ceremony or merely having had a chance to visit a university student
in the past. However, there were those whom I would always try to puzzle out
where they sourced such stories from, because as far as I knew, they had never
been to such an institution. Just to suppress such doubts, I suspected that a
university must be a very desirable place if people talk about it like heaven
and they have never been there.
Narrowing down to my
specific choice, Moi University is the one whose beauty first presented itself
to me. I loved Moi right from the day I learnt how to search for information
over the Internet. The institution’s website looks wonderful on the homepage –
I must confess. The corporate green color, moving text and the alternating
graphic-enhanced headlines looked attractive to my eyes. I did not know how to
follow the links on the page, so I left the site and went ahead to ‘Google’ for
Moi University images. This is where I spent hours smiling. There was the Moi
University Administration and Senate Building which looked similar to my
imaginative Paradise. Margaret Thatcher Library was just enough to clinch my
search but before taking leave of the page, I noticed something very
interesting. I saw some pathways which I had to conduct a double-confirmation to
ascertain that they are really found in the institution. They were decorated
with vegetation on either sides and these plants produced differently-colored
leaves. I knew I had just made the right choice. This was during the period
between the release of K.C.S.E results and revision of courses exercise. I did
not even bother about the exercise because I thought I had already made an
upright decision.
29th August,
2011 was the official opening date as was indicated on my admission form. However,
due to forgivable reasons which the institution knows well, the date was
quickly changed and fell on 14th July the same year, a notice that
was communicated via the newspaper which every Kenyan ought to have read, at
least for that specific communication. I did not. I got the message a couple of
days later. It was purely due to my ignorance and therefore I found no reason
to blame any other party whatsoever. Quick arrangements had to be made and
effected as demanded. Thanks to the amazing grace of the Lord, I got ready for and
landed on the university within the first week.
This is the time when
the reality of theoretical university experience unfolded. I began to
distinguish the truth from true lies. The first statement that I disqualified
came from one of my former teachers unfortunately. ‘Study hard to achieve a good grade, go to the university, enjoy your
life and get a degree in the process…’ With all the confusion that I
normally face, this can never be true; simultaneous lectures, signing nominal
roles and class attendance lists, circulating course registration forms for
lecturers’ signatures, voluminous notes, individual and group assignments, unpredictable
class sit-in CATs and lengthy examinations – just to mention a few. This is not
to mean that challenges are only found under academics. There are also social,
financial, environmental and individual tests that I really do not want to
highlight. To cut a long story short, the university, like any other place, has
numerous challenges that one ought to face if anything good has to become of
them.
The opinion that
getting to the university means succeeding in life also seems too far away from
the truth. There are cases where students misbehave in campus and are
eventually expelled. This calls for self-discipline as one carries him/herself
around campus. Still, continuous below-average performance can lead to a
student being discontinued, which means that one must work very hard to avoid
such an embarrassment. In other cases, students have failed to complete their
studies due to inability to raise fees and the most terrific is when a student unfortunately
passes on in the process of pursuing a course. In this logic, it is quite
evident that being enrolled in a university is not the final step towards success.
Even if you successfully complete your course and graduate, you may just find
yourself joining a multitude of serious graduates as well as job-seekers. The
biggest worry that a university student should therefore have is the question
of, ‘what special quality do I possess
that will attract an employer to me at the expense of the rest?’
Therefore, ‘I still have an ambition…”A desire to
gain favors from the Almighty and become someone worth mentioning in the near
future. Hard work continues…
Read this story elsewhere
