Achieving woman: Former top KCSE student shares journey to engineering degree from UK varsity

Qillian Saiya, a former student at Moi High School, Kabarak and one of the top students in the 2015 KCSE exams just graduated with a Civil and Structural Engineering degree, second class upper division, from the University of Sheffield in the UK.

Qillian, daughter of Nominated Senator Naomi Shiyonga, made headlines when she scored an A with an aggregate of 83 points. She attributed her success on balancing her co-curricular activities with her studies and being disciplined.

Like many top scorers, she had a dream of venturing in the engineering field and loved mathematics and physics from an early age.

''Choosing Civil Engineering was not something that just came to me in an instant. It came as a result of discovering what I am interested in. As nerdy as this may sound I have always loved playing around with numbers and after my form four, I joined Brookhouse School and joined the engineering stream. I was not sure what I wanted to study but focusing on engineering enabled me to discover that I love things that involve structures and road construction, building bridges, water engineering and piping systems. I had my eyes set on Sheffield University because their civil engineering courses covered most of the things that I had an interest in." Qillian explains why she settled on engineering.

Her success, however, did not come without any challenges given that she had chosen to go to school far from home. "The biggest challenge with studying far from home was home sickness. Being in a boarding school at home is easier because you know your family is only a drive away rather than being almost twelve hours away. There wasn't any bigger challenge than that, missing my family, but at least technology helped with that.

“The different teaching and education system was also a challenge in the beginning but having gone through the Foundation Year at Brookhouse I was able to settle in quite comfortably. When I got here, my friends played a key role in making sure I adjusted easily. They also helped me in my studies by proof reading my assignments and I caught up quite fast after a few assignments" Qillian adds.

Unlike many of her peers who don’t manage to go all the way, some opting for easier courses, Qillian admits that no matter how hard things got there was never a time she considered giving up on her dreams. "Giving up has never been an option in anything I do. I never thought of it; not even once. I kept motivating myself by reminding myself why I wanted to take my degree at this specific university. Nothing good comes easy and I knew from the word go that it was not going to be an easy journey." she says.

Her advice for other girls with dreams as big as hers is to not give up no matter how hard the going gets. "What I can tell other girls is to not limit their dreams. You are allowed to dream big and every time you feel overwhelmed and stressed to continue, remind yourself why you started your journey and what you want to achieve. Constantly motivate yourself and know that pain is temporary. Whatever you are planning on achieving is bigger than what you are going through now. Above everything else pray upon your dreams and pray for God's guidance in all that you would like to achieve and you will find it way easier." she concluded.

Qillian is currently planning on pursuing her Masters in Transport and Business Management come September.