Dropping Out, Finding My Way

A True Story

by Thuita J. Maina

on Aug 15, 2022

Picture related to the title of the story — *JKUAT. Photo credit: Tuko News.*

When I enrolled at JKUAT in May 2007 to pursue an engineering degree, my parents were proud of me. They certainly thought I was destined for great things. But one thing led to another and before I knew it, I was a university dropout.

Lack of passion for my engineering course, I now realize, was the main reason I dropped out of JKUAT. There was a day in my first year when I felt relieved because we weren't attending classes. It was a public holiday.

The engineering course was also a tough nut for me to crack. I couldn't, for instance, grasp a complex formula known as Schrodinger's wave equation that our first-semester chemistry lecturer required us to memorize.

I remember, but only dimly, wondering whether the likes of Mwai Kibaki had to grasp such difficult concepts during their university years. (Kibaki was the then president of the republic of Kenya.)

Not surprisingly, I failed Material Science, a unit we studied in first year. I was on long holidays when JKUAT authorities informed me I had flunked the unit, and when I retook the exam, I failed it again!

Had I passed all my first-year units, I'd have continued pursuing my engineering degree. But since JKUAT couldn't allow us to proceed to third year without passing all first- and second-year units, failing Material Science demoralized me.

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Also check out "JKUAT: Where Engineering Meets Brilliance".

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"And You Went to Harvard?"

A True Story

by Thuita J. Maina

on Aug 10, 2022

I read in an old Reader's Digest magazine that American television host and comedian Conan O'Brien, a Harvard alumnus, warned a graduating class they were in for a lifetime of "And you went to Harvard?"

"Accidentally give the wrong change in a transaction," he said, "and it's, 'And you went to Harvard?' Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants and it's, 'And you went to Harvard?'"

So, it seems I was lucky to have been rejected by Harvard twice, even after I created what I called a "Dream Book" in which I pasted photos of Harvard College I cut out of a Harvard brochure.

You see, if I had gone to Harvard, some people would have been like, "And you went to Harvard?" given the way I sent them silly messages, talked out of turn, and shared tall tales. I've also been slow on the uptake.

Last year, for instance, I went to produce a song with Lenny Ndirangu, whom I hadn't met before. I alighted near a road under another road, thinking it was where he had told me to do so. But when he came for me, he couldn't find me.

We kept asking each other where we were, a runaround that raised his hackles. He had to instruct me to hand over my phone to a bodaboda rider. The one he talked to asked me to get on his motorbike, and off we went.

When we finally met, Lenny told me the "road under another road" where I had alighted is called an underpass. He then told me a footbridge was the structure next to us for pedestrians to cross to the other side of the highway.

Apparently, he had told me to alight near a footbridge and I mistook an underpass for one—a mistake that would have left him wondering, "And you went to Harvard?" if I had ever attained my dream of studying there.

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Also check out "Dreams, Stars and Rejections".
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