My Journey to Makerere University and Experiences as a Beneficiary of Academic Mobility Scholarship

I was born in the later years of the 20th century and when I was growing up in the rural areas of the western parts of Kenya, I would often hear people talking about great universities in the region then. Names like the University of Nairobi, Makerere University, and the University of Dar es Salaam would often be mentioned. Many of the nationalists, especially economists, back then, had gone through Makerere University. I would get some booklets my older siblings had with pictorial representations of the different universities in Africa, and would enjoy seeing the beautiful sceneries and admire how one day I would get a chance to be physically present in body and soul in those universities. My mother would often talk of me being a great man (I still harbor the ambitions to become a great man someday, though what defines being a great man is subject to discussion), and my father, though himself not formally well educated, would talk big about Makerere University, but it never crossed my mind that one day I would find myself in this university that has produced great people in the region, including the third President of the Republic of Kenya, His Excellence, retired President Mwai Kibaki. So, when the results of the scholarship for Mobility for Training, Engineering and Technology Graduates in Africa (METEGA) came through my email address, I was eager and enthusiastic to follow the footsteps of some of these great personalities. In this paper I share the story of my journey to and experience at Makerere University.