Quit bubble thinking and be different

Quit bubble thinking and be different

Lecturer Mr. Raiji and I on my graduation

BY MUSYOKA NGUI

During my recent visit to my alma mater, I made interesting observations which I wish to share. I gathered that the student population was still on upward trajectory and that the prophecy of Jerusha Kanyua was still relevant.

What I found pitifully inside the bubble thinking was the attitude of my former colleagues who are due to step out of college this year. Some imagine that having a degree is anything special in Kenya. They are so many that no one bothers to count, neither keep up with.

Having a degree doesn’t make you stand out. It thrusts you to the pool of ordinary starters without experience and some form of sameness and similarity that has no iota of difference.

I decided to comment on this matter because I am aware that several employers in this country are making fresh graduates look bad and scapegoating them for hard economic time’s excuses.

From banks retrenching workers in droves to fractured media and cartels fronting their cronies and rewarding mediocrity, ours is anything but a technocracy.

Whom you know matter more than what you know. To paraphrase a renowned sage, it is not the know-how but the know-who.

The world of work isn’t the romanticized field lecturers tell you in spacious lecture halls. You will stay without regular income. You will be underemployed. You will earn 10k for a year and by the time you get a pay rise, you are 30. 30k after tax will be for few. Yet you will fantasize on the imaginary grass on the other side and waste time to know and be grateful of the moment that you are enjoying that your former colleagues only wish for.

Others think starting a business is the alternative to misery. Some of the youths I engage come off as in a hurry to prove a point, get to nowhere or settle old scores with the system. They don’t keep their cool neither do they plan. Is your idea sustainable? No one is discouraging anyone but much of the work is in the sharpening the axe rather than cutting the tree.