Her progression from the University of Nairobi to Harvard Law School was not exactly easy-to-do, but it's a classic example of shooting your shot no matter what. She had just one chance and an 80-dollar donation from her brother to make it happen.
"I had this yearning to go and study abroad. So I made a list of the biggest schools in the Ivy League. And at the time, I had application fees for only one school, it was like $80 or $70 - that's a lot of money. At the very last minute, my brother gave me $80 ... I had one shot and I applied to Harvard!" she explains.
Her acceptance into Harvard stirred some mixed emotions.
"When you are young, you think you're unbreakable. You think the world is yours for the taking. You haven't been dinged up yet and you don't have that many bruises on your knees ... At the time, I was much more confident than I am now about the things I could do with my life. I thought, I will run this country at some point," she says.
"I was very excited. And very quickly my excitement turned into 'Oh my goodness!'. Harvard is a collection of the smartest kids from around the world. This is law school. This is in my class. There were judges. There were a lot of students who had been practising for a long, long time. I was the youngest in my class, it was just it was extremely intimidating!"
"People are just people - even the fanciest, the richest, the smartest. I met literal rocket scientists and others... And certified geniuses are just people. They are people like everybody else. They are people like me ... Figuring that out I think was liberating for me."
Despite being a student in one of the most prestigious schools worldwide, there were some challenges that forced her to learn how to be assertive.
"I have now learned to work with the things that work for me. How can I best perform here? What are my strengths? How do I leverage those strengths?"
When asked about her job as PS for Diaspora Affairs, she said, "It's been the adventure of my life. I am having the time of my life. It is fun ... It is hard work. It is some of the hardest work I've ever done! ... I am loving my team. I have currently a team of about 35 or so and looking to grow to about 130 in the next few months. There will be active recruitment coming up soon."