AT A CROSSROADS: A little advice to prospective university candidates

In Tanzania educational system, one of the key stages is advanced level of secondary education, which is the ladder to pinnace of schooling--the university. This is where nation’s future intellectuals make career choices. Their choices, in my view, collectively play a great role in determining the future fortunate of our dear motherland.

In those days, when there was just the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and a handful of colleges, form six graduates walked tall with assurance of getting ‘good’ jobs. Today, UDSM is a mammoth institution, with numerous colleges. We have also many other public and private universities, with hundreds of graduates every year. This year, over 90,000 students sat for the Form Six exams. Those who have passed them are expected to join university, and in future, shape our nation.

As I pen this column, many students that have passed their exams and qualify for the higher education are scratching their heads, on the undergraduate programmes to choose, which will largely determine their careers. Sometimes the candidates find themselves in a catch-22. This is a paradoxical situation where one is unable to run away from because of contradictory limitations. For every degree programme you choose, there are pros and cons. Yet, at the end of the day, one must make a choice.

Back in our days, personally, my hunger to go to university was some assurance of a better future. From a young age, our parents and teachers, made it clear to us that being educated would lead to a better life, and that meant, mainly white collar jobs.

Maybe, today’s young men and women, seeking university admission, are more informed than us. After all, this is the age of digitisation, a means that has shrunk the world making so much information readily accessible from the click of a mouse or tap on a phone. We have “professor” Google, the worldwide web search engine, that maybe one of the most important teacher currently.

Youngsters can Google top careers, businesses, available colleges and so on. So as they choose their careers, they have got loads of information that one can get by just digging up the internet. For us, we had to buy some career guide books and seek the wisdom of the elders.

A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, found out that only 27 per cent of college graduates were working in fields related to their studies. I could not find any related study here at home, but the fact remains, with so many universities available in Tanzania, it’s difficult for many to find a clear career fit as per degree to study.

There is a saying that “You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequences of your choice.” As hundreds of young men and women fight to join the higher education, they need to make informed choices. And they should know that university life is not a walk in the park.

It calls for hard work, a very inquisitive mind, a high level of independence while studying yet great discipline. Most of those joining higher education for undergraduate degree are between 18 and 20 years and with hot ideas about what life should be. I would advise them to cool off and learn from those with experience, and successful one.

Some of the prospective candidates’ parents may have little education yet they sacrificed a lot for their children to reach university. Please know that parents have life experience which you don’t have that may prove very valuable.

There is also the question of emotions control and ensuring that peer pressure does not destroy your academic ambitions. There are many dos and don’ts. Follow the university culture, rules and regulations, and automatically you will be able to find the university life so interesting.