Confessions of a campuser! I cheated my way to campus

Growing up in uptown Kololo, I was the quintessential good girl. I listened in class, and was always on the honor roll despite various after-school activities – including ballet class multiple times a week, and piano and violin lessons. I felt so smart and in control, and I actually scoffed at people who failed their classes.

At the end of 10th grade( i was at International School Uganda), my mother decided that I needed to experience life as a teenager in her hometown of Nairobi Kenya, so she shipped me off to one of the most elite prep schools in all of Kenya.

As a slight control freak, I wasn’t too happy about getting shipped off to a school in a different country, but I had no choice in the matter.

Getting accepted wasn’t easy – it was basically like applying for college, but through the Kenyan government. I had to take an equivalency test to see if I was intelligent enough to attend, and there was a lengthy screening process that involved the board of education going over my transcript and extracurricular activities countless times. After a few weeks of the application process, I was accepted.

Since I had always excelled in school in Uganda, nobody, including my cocky 16-year-old self, thought I’d have trouble at my new school.

I was wrong.

I had trouble with everything. I was fluent in Swahili, but not enough for school. I didn’t have any friends, the unpleasant vice principal hated me and my mother for some reason, and worst of all, I couldn’t keep up with my schoolwork at all. It was a mess.

There were predetermined weeks, each about four weeks apart, where the entire school would have tests and quizzes at the same time, with all the grades jumbled together in the same classrooms. During the first testing week, I crashed and burned. I failed literally everything except my English language test (that would have been really sad to fail).

I’m usually very composed, but I cried a lot that week. I felt like I didn’t have control over absolutely anything in my own life, and I was a mess because it wasn’t what I was used to. I went from having a group of best friends to having no friends, from honor roll to failing, and from loving life to hating it. I didn’t even have a proper bedroom that I could make my own personal space. I hated school, I hated Nairobi, and I hated myself for being so stupid. I was miserable.

By the time the second testing week rolled around, I had made a friend, and she let me in on a huge secret: Cheating was really easy.

Right before the first exam that week, my friend showed me her tactic for cheating on tests, which was to write as much info as she could on a tiny piece of paper and hide it in her sleeve. It felt wrong to cheat, but I did the same as my friend did: I stuck a tiny cheat sheet in the sleeve of my shirt, and went to my exam room to cheat for the first time in my life.

I was so nervous about getting caught that I was sweating. But to my luck, a really old, practically ancient chemistry professor who couldn’t hear at all was the proctor for my room. He didn’t even look my way when I pulled the little paper out of my sleeve and unfolded it under the desk. I didn’t get caught, and I didn’t fail the test.

Now don’t get me wrong, I barely passed, but that was enough for me. I was ecstatic about passing, and I felt some sort of power high because I felt like I had control over at least something in my life again.

By the start of the third quarter, I was well-adjusted to the Kenyan school system and caught with my studies (thanks to constant tutoring), but I didn’t stop cheating. I couldn’t stop. It was too exhilarating to not do. Cheating gave me the feeling of being in constant control over my grades since I didn’t have a say in anything else. I felt like it was the only thing keeping me sane.

I got so addicted to cheating that over time that I expanded my cheating skills and became an expert. I would run to the classroom my exam would be in and write answers on the desk before the proctor came in, or I would strategically place little cheat sheets underneath my thin stockings on my upper thigh where my skirt would cover it, and pretend to scratch my thigh if I needed an answer.

Suddenly moving to Kenya taught me that you can’t always be in control over everything (or anything, for that matter). I realized that it’s human nature to create something that you can hold on to, sort of as a coping mechanism – something that makes you feel better. For me, cheating was my lifeline during those two crazy years of high school in Kenya.

After high school, I moved back to Uganda for Campus and had 100% control over which university I chose, and what I wanted to study. I was able to start classes on clean slate. I learned to lighten up and let go of the control freak inside of me. And now my conscience is at peace knowing I left that rebellious part of me behind.
But who knows what the future holds for me….<<wink>>

…as narrated to writer by a Nkozi student that preferred anonymity.