A leap into the unknown by a finalist
By Jacinta Museo
People will always say that the four campus years are the best in your life, which is such a fairy tale!
All through, you face so many challenges - financial constraints, missing marks by stubborn professors who can't even reply to an e-mail, 378 heartbreaks by over 400 trial boy/girl friends, five sneaky links, roommates' incompatibility- just to mention a few.
I personally feel like campus is one of the most depressing places you'll ever be. You come here so fresh, but by the time you are getting your degree, it's accompanied by a number of traumas.
You can't be at peace here, it's either you've been heartbroken, your Nicodemus has left for a fresher, you are hustling for missing marks or maybe your Mpesa got nothing. Something, something must be disturbing.
But regardless, we keep hopes that things will get better once school is over. Something that I've not been believing in lately. I am a final year Journalism and Media student at Moi and let me say that this last semester is depressing. As I hit that "Register courses" button, I sighed and felt so relieved, but then nolstagic. Did I just register for my last semester?
Thoughts of finishing school started sucking. Everybody is asking what are your plans, what's your exit strategy, how many personalities do you know in the media industry. Then there you are, your background? A pain in the xxx. Your mother a peasant farmer, your father a mason, you've nobody in the field to call a relative, and the school is ending. Depressing, right?
Again, this semester feels so emotional. It carries a melancholic melody, echoing the bittersweet symphony of farewells. The once bustling halls now will whisper tales of memories etched in time. It's hard to accept the fact that this is the last dance before the curtain falls on this chapter of our lives.
Just as these campus trees shed their leaves, that's how we will shed the familiarity. We are leaving behind the cocoon of academia to face the unknown. The excitement of what lies beyond is tinged with the realization that the comforting routine of campus life is coming to an end.
Each lecture I'm attending and every CAT I'm going to do feels like a farewell to a version of myself that I'll never fully reclaim. How many times will I shout depressing?
Now, the pressure to secure a future competes with the desire to savor the present. I'm personally terrified. Scared of what the next six months of my life after school will look like. Scared that the reality might be sad but I'll have to face it, it's time now I start distributing my 2-page Carricullum Vitae and have it ignored (maybe). This semester? It is a delicate dance between academics and the bittersweet nostalgia of every "last" – the last lecture, the last coffee at the campus cafe, the last sunset over the familiar skyline. I wonder if anyone else is feeling like this.
But, I've written this for you and me. We have to be beginners at times in this life. Hang in there, the universe will align.
Adieu!
