Time, Chance, Potential

An Epistle to the Freshers,

Dear Comrades,

Welcome to this prestigious university. The only university on the south of the Sahara and north of the Limpompo, that you can find the most concentration of intellectuals per every square metre. I salute you for your most excellent performance in graduating from High School.

I welcome you to our wonderful world of campus! This is the place where there are no early morning preps. No bells to announce the end of class, when to wake up, when to go for lunch or when to go for evening preps. No prefects to supervise you as you do your preps in pin drop silence.

Dear comrades, let me share with you a great piece of wisdom that an elder brother of mine shared with me. He told me that to succeed in campus, I should not work hard, but that I should work smart. I was amazed by his words because he had been in this campus as an engineering student and had graduated with a first class honors. For me to hear him say that I should not work hard came as a big surprise. It has taken me three good academic years to discover the wisdom in my brother’s words.

I have discovered three key components of being a smart student. These are Time, Chance and Potential. I am now almost a fourth year and I can confidently tell you that four years on campus is really a short time. One of the most important things that you need to guard with wisdom is how you spend your time on campus. Trust the wahengas when they said, “time is money”. For you the cost of time is not money but the kind of degree you graduate with. More so, not only the kind of degree, but your wholesome quality as a graduate of such a prestigious university.

The second component is chance. In the good book of farming there is a passage that states, “the race is not to the swift, or the battle for the strong, nor does food come to the wise…but time and chance happen to them all.” In life, every one of us has a chance to either succeed or fail, no matter your family background or the “whom you know factor”, as most of us would argue. The difference in being successful or being a failure is dictated by how you decide to pick out the chances and opportunities that come your way. A friend of mine once told me, “opportunities don’t just knock at our doors, they actually pass by our doors.” The wisdom of being smart comes in when you are able to discern and know when to open your door and grab the opportunities.

The third component of being smart is potential. One thing I discovered during my freshman year is that when we came to campus, irrespective of which high school we hailed from, we were all equal in terms of potential. Every one of us is endowed with an equal chance of getting a first class honors when he or she gets admitted into campus. However this potential is always dictated by the decisions that one makes while on campus and also the company one chooses to associate with. I don’t mean to school you on whom you should have as a friend or hang out with. I certainly also don’t mean that you shouldn’t have friends who love to party, rave and have fun. No! My advice is that find friends whom you can challenge each other in all spheres of your student life. I encourage you to find friends whom after hanging out with, you can confidently say they have added value to your life. One thing I am certain of is that the friendships I have made on campus are life-long and meaningful. The experience that I have had so far at this university will forever be embedded in my heart. It’s my prayer that come four years down the line when you will be in my place you will reminisce this article and say how true and that in your heart you will have no “I wish I knew moments.”

Now don’t get me wrong dear comrade, in thinking that being a smart student doesn’t entail having fun. From my experience I have had fun on campus in different ways that I wouldn’t be able to describe in this article. I would highly encourage you that as early as first year, start looking for different opportunities that you can plug into. For me by November of my freshman year, I had already been involved with several student clubs. These were Campus Life, Kenya Model United Nations (K.M.U.N) and the Journey. Being in these clubs helped me to form a broad social network where I interacted with different students especially the third and fourth years. They encouraged me to continue being active in the groups and also to look out for more opportunities. Through the KMUN club, I was able to go for annual national conferences at the U.N headquarters in Gigiri and I was also able to travel overseas for different programs through other organizations. The point here comrades, is that through an active engagement in different organizations you get to improve your social network, and your mind is challenged with different opportunities and responsibilities. At the end of the day you become a better you, for lack of a better phrase. For me being a smart campuserian is not just getting all the A’s in your end year transcript but being a well-rounded student.

Thank you for you time dear comrade. I wish y’all God’s blessings in your quest for knowledge and fun in this prestigious university.

Yours truly,

Fellow Comrade