THE MYTH ASSOCIATED WITH UNIVERSITY STUDENTS_ BY BISHOP SAHR ISAAC PETERSON

Myth, they say, are things we imagine but lacks the nature of inherent attribute of truth, at the very least. We'd talk shortly around this myth carried by almost every student in this day and age. 

When I first stepped onto the university campus, I carried a quiet assumption that had followed me through secondary school and into the lecture halls: once I graduated, the worry would be over. Like me, many students with the same hungry, hopeful hearts arrive at that conclusion. We treat the degree like a finish line, as if the paper itself will rearrange the world on our behalf.

That belief is understandable. A degree matters. It opens doors. But somewhere between year one and year three, I realized I had quietly abandoned the small, steady things that were actually keeping me afloat. I stopped teaching the evening classes that paid my transport. 

I missed the pastoral council meetings that kept my calendar grounded. I let editing jobs slip through my fingers because I told myself, “After this year, things will change.” 

The irony is that the waiting itself was the change—just not the one I wanted.

I saw the same pattern in Sento, a close student I met at a Ugandan university. Brilliant, disciplined, but convinced that real life would start after the final exam. We both built our days around the future and neglected the present. It wasn’t until I got close to my final year that the illusion cracked. The degree was coming, yes. But if I had stopped being useful now, what version of me would walk into that “after”?

So I’m writing this with every part of me awake, to bring your attention back to the little things that still matter—during college and long after it.

You don’t stop selling butter scotch just because you’re a university student. If that small hustle taught you discipline, customer care, and how to show up on time, then it’s not beneath you. It’s training. You don’t cut off the relationships that taught you how to communicate, listen, and serve just because you now have a student ID and access to a computer lab. Those relationships are your network before you know what networking is. 

Step up your style, yes. But more than that, step up your composure. Ultimum composure—the kind that stays calm when the assignment piles up, the kind that keeps your word when no one is watching. Motivation isn’t a speech you give yourself once a semester. It’s the decision to keep doing the small, unglamorous work when the big moment feels far away.

I say this after walking through Central University at Mile 91. The place forced me to recalibrate. Machines humming in well-set workshops. Entire wings of computer labs where the air feels different because the tools are current. A library where you’ll struggle to find a loose sheet of paper, but you’ll find terminals, databases, and students engaged in research that actually looks like the 21st century. 

It hit me: a university is another universe. It can make you feel like you’ve stepped into a future where life is unique, precise, and full of possibility. And if you’re not careful, it can also make you feel appalled—by how far behind you might feel, or by how easy it is to drift into passivity while surrounded by resources.

That’s why I choose to celebrate Central University. They’ve mapped themselves out for professional and standard outcomes, not just academic ones. The infrastructure isn’t for show. It’s an invitation: use this, build with this, become the kind of person who can handle responsibility when it arrives. 

Here’s what I know now. The degree will validate you, but the habits you keep now will define you. Keep teaching. Keep editing. Keep showing up for the meetings that have nothing to do with your GPA but everything to do with your character. Keep the relationships that remind you who you were before the title. 

University isn’t the end of the struggle. It’s the place where the struggle gets more precise. Treat it that way. Don’t wait for “after graduation” to start living like a professional. The professional is built in the small choices you make between lectures.

When you graduate, the world won’t ask you what you believed about the future. It will ask what you can do right now. 

Make sure the answer is honest.

 

© Bishop Sahr Isaac Peterson  

Public Speaking Coach  

Writer & Poet, Africa