Life as a first year university student

By Moses Ndung’u

Fine, that day was not what I would call a mayday, but it made a glitch on me that intend to make some little pile of history in my life. The day the author of this article joined the university.

Taking some status approximations as outlined in the strict sieving process that involves shortlisting. The austerity that denies chances just by the mere fact of a ‘missed by a point’ is a Kenyan kind of trait well known to deny first class brains a chance of getting into a university. Being decimated below the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) cutline is a feared and revered term in the examinations fraternity.

Now, what is the big deal inside that coveted institute of higher learning? A lot of goodies and cookies? A first year student taking a Bachelor of Commerce is not sure… “Well, think it’s a fair share of the two kingdoms, I mean the good and the evil? A probe into this is well avoided as matters that concern social ignobility then arise.

But why? It is a haven of unleashed talents, positive and negative. It is a company of gashing freedom that runs over the dams of restrictions, creating an electric current that runs the university, picked physically, induction-wise or even telepathically. It has never been great, and fresher would not mind shouting that into your heart.

To win somebody, one has to appeal to the hearts of the subject, and I think this is what the products of higher learning institutions just did. Now it has taken a gravely egregious cause. This is because many ‘freshers’ in their innocent camaraderie end up being the topical study in moral degradation.

A horde of young men most of them sophomores were on Sunday frog-matched after being apprehended in the act of smoking bhang in a retreat that borders River side Park. Their fate is now to be determined in a tougher way. These are students from a constituent college in Kerugoya who decided to have an off from the normalcy of social morality.

Now most of the students are the sole players in their lives. Having the parents out of the equation, they undergo financial hurdles. Sleeping hungry at the campus is not a big deal, though the mess (a slang for the student’s cafeteria) provides ultra-cheap food. It ends up being unaffordable when an engineering student cannot secure a meal of ten shillings

Whether a student slept hungry, it is not the business of the lecturer. You either pass or get a supplementary exam that later leads to discontinuation if they accumulate. It is the education style of Kenya; it is the best definition of survival for the best, and most probably, the falling of rain into the oceans, leaving behind deserts. Therefore, this is the campus life.