Another semester!
Now this is probably a couple of days late, but we have to study anyway.
The start of any new semester and this one, to be particular, has so many different meanings to so many different people at various stages.
The Fresher
The fresher who has spent three months in campus from the last semester and is still getting the hang of it probably, feels its about time he changed tactic and became a little more serious, in consideration of that one retake he/she got during that last semester.
He thinks to himself during that short two weeks holiday of how different this coming semester is going to be like and one month into this semester, it seems he is on his way to getting yet another retake!
God knows he has tried but with the alcohol, the women and don’t get me started on the weed, where is the time to concentrate on his books?
Amidst all that, he has his friends and who said he wants to be the one that’s left behind? He has also realised that getting girls is not as hard as it was in high school. The high school girls are now the easiest lot, it’s as simple as mentioning that you are in Campus.
Also that girlfriend he has had since his form six vacation?, he really does not have to keep up with her except for the fact that she used her tuition on him just because he felt like he had to fit in with his friends, most of whom drove cars around campus. And if it was not for the fact that his girlfriend whom in his mind is now his ex was in a difficult situation because she was trying to come up with the tuition before the examination period, he would have dumped her already because there are plenty fish in the sea and anyway he is just in first year. Who told people that he was serious at this time of his life? He still has a couple of semesters to catch up, he thinks!.
The Second year
To the second year, who is finally realising that with her four retakes from the past three semesters, she just may be left behind by her peers who are graduating next year! Oh, how time flies!
She missed half the lectures of the previous semester because doesn’t it feel good to be a second year? Not to be addressed as a fresher? And oh yes, there are perks to being a second year.
An example of Uganda Christian University where all first years sleep in the University’s halls of residence.
Being a second year gives you the freedom of finally moving out of hall without necessarily going through the hustle and bustle of writing various letters to the administration just to sleep outside the school.
So yes, she finally moved out of hall and resided in the hostel of her choice.
With no one to constantly tell her about school, she spends half the semester enjoying and getting used to the exterior of the University.
To go out and come back when she feels like it and have no one to answer to?
It also happens that it is at this time that many job opportunities seem to open up for her though the money isn’t really showing face but at least she has the escort job to fall back on since many of her peers are doing that and seem to be making a tonne of money. She will take anything at this point.
So yes, she will miss that test that is to be given tomorrow because she has a modelling gig that very day. Convinced she is working for the greater good, she picks the gig.
This earns her two retakes which could very well have been many more had she not woken up at the very last minute and tried to salvage her dieing education.
She, however, believes she is better than Dorothy, the girl next door in her hostel who has had three abortions for a married man who promised to marry her but seems to always be out of the country these days and yet his Ugandan line is always on and sometimes he picks up only to hear her voice and say it’s his assistant.
Anyway forgetting her neighbour and thinking of her own problems, this semester, she promises to improve and now one month into the semester, you could say it is better than the past semester because at least this time her name appears on the attendance sheet.
The Finalist
To the finalist whose time has run out because this is his last semester and he is only just realising that maybe campus is the perfect hide out for him.
Because as he completes this semester, his parents expect him to move out of home, have a job but also the weekly allowance that used to come in because he is at campus is about to stop and by God; he is only twenty two years of age!
He thinks back to how excited he was that he was finally getting done with this phase of his life with his girlfriend of now four years whom he met during the orientation week of the first years while he was in second year. Because most guys from Makerere University do the same since people in different halls are grouped together to jog in the first week as a way of getting to know each other. Before he felt it to be a high school tradition but through it he met his beautiful Sandra. But now as he is nearing the end, the amount of responsibility that is on his shoulders is nothing short of hilarious and even Sandra does little to help the situation.
Amidst his fear of the future, this is also his last chance to raise his CGPA which has had a permanent position in the PASS category to something like a Second lower that would at the very least get him a chance to perhaps have a job too.
The pressure is so strong that as his thoughts wander back to his first year, he wishes he could turn back the ends of time. Hearing a knock at his door, his thoughts are interrupted by the same dark short guy who always comes to preach to him God’s word. Today, however, his patience is too thin to entertain him.
And there you have it, your campus life in 3D. Now many of you may go against this and probably refute it but this is a cycle of every campus student. Except of course the selected few and if you count yourself among those. Well, then congratulations, you missed the campus experience.