After I received my admission letter it indicated that I should report officially to the campus on the 27th of March 2020. But what happened? The pandemic led to suspension of physical learning in every learning institution. This was quite a heavy blow for me. Who wouldn’t want to be in one of the prestigious universities like Strathmore University? I felt my expectations would be affected leading to my delayed graduation, and this would affect my dream career as well. I recommend Strathmore because they adhere to their promises, one being that you are assured of a timely graduation. A week later, I received an email communicating that online classes would start on the 20th of April. I wondered how these sessions would take place and I was a little upset as this meant that I would not be able to enjoy the school facilities since everything would be run off-campus.
Professional and proficient
“Awesome and fantastic” is perhaps one of the best ways I can describe my first day “in Strathmore” and if you ask any of my classmates you will get the same answer. We got a warm welcome from the Strathmore team. Our faculty administrators from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences {SHSS} prepared us for our orientation and everybody on that material day was ready to attend the session via zoom. We met a number of lecturers who spoke about different areas concerning the University. I was impressed how the orientation was coordinated, activity to activity, speaker to speaker; this completely revealed the Strathmore team’s professionalism and proficiency in their way of doing things.
First experience with zoom
I would be lying if I said I had used Zoom before and I never thought I’d use it to attend class. I’ve had a few embarrassing moments on the application and a couple of my classmates will tell you their own stories of little embarrassments. For instance, I kept turning on my camera without realizing it, unmuting my microphone; the background noise would then interrupt and entertain the class until the host muted my microphone. I sometimes wanted to raise my hand, but didn’t remember how to do it. We learn through mistakes and if you ask me how to use zoom today you can be assured that I would be the best teacher for that. Challenges that come with electric power are inevitable, not to mention poor internet connections. But I really want to thank Strathmore for their persistent care in ensuring that they help us to have our online classes as smoothly as possible. One day I got a call from Mr. Jotham Njoroge asking what were the challenges I was facing on my e-learning platform. One of them was the cost incurred as the zoom app consumed a lot of bundles quickly. I was surprised the following day to receive 10240 MB e-learning bundle from Safaricom, courtesy of Strathmore. This was of great help to me.
Strathmore culture
During the orientation I finally got to confirm some of the Strathmore street talks I had been hearing of such as the dress code. It’s not easy to adapt to it but when you do it becomes part of you. I am really enjoying having to wake up in the morning to prepare for my classes and not forgetting to be officially dressed, a task that was not easy at the beginning – however it works and puts one in the mood for learning. Other aspects include class attendance and class participation which counts on one’s total score. Respect in class and at school is highly upheld; I’m now aware of the spiritual formation offered by the Chaplaincy. As a matter of fact, I am really looking forward to acting as a Mass server when we go back to campus. I’m already in love with the Strathmore Chapels.
The article was written by Reuben Mutuku James, first-year, Bachelor of Arts in International Studies.
Would you like to share your experience of living through the circumstances brought by the Covid-19 pandemic? Kindly email: communications@strathmore.edu
