Campus: the only place to make your dreams come true or shut them down completely

It is always a good bye to our village folks and our parents as we start the journey to the land of future honey where real education can be obtained. You know in village the education standard is not that high to offer skills to become a lawyer you saw on TV or a doctor you happened to bump into, thanks to doctor’s countrywide demonstrations every year.  Many freshers will be making their transition to world of freedom, the only world where love, peer pressure, alcohol, white parties full of goodies, sex, drugs, conmen, the only place you attend classes without that “must be long skirt” uniform and no one bothers to ask why.

Moving into a new environment always requires adapting, but adapting has some challenges which only take the brave ones to come out unscratched. Campus is the only place where your dreams can come true and same place where your visions can be shut down for good. I remember when joining my first year. Many of us were innocent; no smoking, no alcohol, no clubbing, no sex, no drugs was our motto. Our main duty was to attend classes and pass exams so that we can obtain first class honors.

The first two months were the best moments we had as friends; waking up very early in the morning to attend the boring Math class. The routine was simple; whoever reaches early must book seats for all of us. At the end of semester one, many had started to realize they don’t belong to freshers’ group, mostly ladies. You know 4th years always wait to prey on these young ones so if you had any motives, it was better you forget and call that girlfriend you left in the village.  

After the 4th year unapologetically snatching that girl you had wasted all you pocket money on, you will try fighting back using the team mafisi slogan “real fisi never give up”. But as the wise men said “time wasted is never recovered”, the end of semester exams will come knocking at your doorsteps while you don’t remember the last time you went to the library. That is the time you will realize that your life belongs to you and you alone. Everything will come crumbling down, your friend Peter, will be in library all the time, Deno will doing revision because he already knows he passed the “cats” very well and need only 15% to get pass mark, Joy will be visiting her 4th year boyfriend who is helping her to understand the quantum theory in Phy 100.

With all those frustrations, team peer pressure will be gladly waiting to help you, drugs will be your first degree, alcohol second, sex third and if lucky suspension will be your fourth degree. In case you are not lucky enough, expulsion will be your last degree which can only lead to two things, go back to village or become a gangster and conman.

Being in campus mean being an adult and thus the world expects you to behave like one, is a place to show your strength and not weakness, is a place to gain skills and not be pregnant, is a place to make your dreams true and not shut them down, is a place to mound you to a responsible person not an irresponsible one.

As many of you will be joining campus, remember great men you see around came from there, and also those you see on streets robbing and conning people were once A’s materials. Make good use of that place don’t come out with regrets because there is only one degree at a time and not two or three.