The Prodigal Student

in Articles By Mccuon on 13 Oct 2026

“ I want to pursue two or three courses at once, get a First Class in each, attend every lecture, receive multiple awards, and perhaps even fly abroad.”

These are some of the beautiful delusions we carried with us when we first stepped into campus.

After the pressure cooker called high school, we arrived on high spirits, intoxicated by possibility and chasing a version of a reality that existed mostly in our heads. We had spent years being told to dream big, so naturally, we dreamed without restraint. Somewhere between the final high-school paper and our first university lecture, we began to see ourselves through the lens of visionary men and women of renown. We were going to change the world, or at the very least, graduate with enough accolades to make the world notice. But perhaps campus is not merely where we come to earn degrees. Perhaps it is where the steam of adolescence is allowed to escape, where ambition meets reality, and where the person we imagined ourselves to be begins negotiating with the person we actually are and could turn to be.

And that was me in 2023.

Let me tell you, I was the embodiment of “I can do all things through Christ…”—and, in my enthusiasm, I had apparently decided that “all things” meant absolutely everything.

I was going to attend every lecture. I would open my portal and find it decorated with a collection of the ever coveted As. I would conceive a multibillion-dollar idea before graduation. I would be recognized, celebrated, perhaps even summoned to the multiple award ceremonies. And no, I was not talking about the “mathes” from klabu trying to lure me into their vibandas as it turned out to be. I wanted something grander. I wanted to be the perfect student, the kind whose name lecturers remembered and whose academic record was flawless.

And as the highly spiritualized being that I was, I had developed an impressive ability to read “God’s voice” into nearly every circumstance.

Being admitted to a prestigious university? Certainly a divine orchestration.

Being placed in a rather peculiar course? Clearly, part of the master plan.

A strange opportunity appearing at the right time? Another sign.

I could find no reasonable doubt against my grand conquest. I was ready to conquer the earth, or at least my little campus corner of it.

Little did I know that reality was preparing to introduce itself with a rather firm slap across the face.

By the middle of my first semester, the grand vision had begun to crack.

There was a growing pile of unfinished assignments, lectures I had somehow missed, and, to make matters worse, the tedious lab work. The girl who had arrived determined to conquer academia was now negotiating with deadlines.

I began hanging by the thread of redemption in the next semester.

But if you want to know how that redemption went, consider this: by second year, I was attending classes while simultaneously shopping for clothes in Muthurwa. Perhaps that should tell you everything.

By then, I had retired from my As shenanigans, and the jokes za ‘kukula chapo dry klabu yet sup iko portal,’ started to hit closer to home than I had ever anticipated.

Have you ever heard of free molecules? Well, I was a perfect example of one.

I had become a full-time joker, tourist and an outstanding volunteer, and only a part-time student, with online classes offering generous support to this newly discovered way of life.

I attended every Kesha I could find. Retreats? Present. Activities? Present. Hangouts? Absolutely. If there was an event, there was a good chance I was there.

Life was sweet.

Well, except for the small inconvenience of having to cover an entire semester’s coursework overnight.

During exam season, I would practically have to be dragged out of the library, often accompanied by the same devastating question: “Where have you been for the last thirteen weeks?”

But, of course, you already know the answer.

By the time I was making my way into third year, I had become the perfect cautionary tale for any student who arrived on campus carrying the kind of ambition I once did.

But trust me, I had woken up.

This time, I was ready to take the bull by the horns, not with the reckless confidence of my first year, but with the sobering wisdom of someone who had already been humbled by deadlines, missed lectures, overnight revision and the occasional academic near-death experience.

My years in campus had left a deep inscription on the resume of my life: ambition without structure is merely a beautiful idea with nowhere to go.

And so, somewhere along the way, I changed.

I became more structured, more intentional, and far more conscious of why I was in school in the first place. Academia was no longer something I was merely trading between fellowships, missions, hangouts and the occasional last minute encounter with an entire semester’s worth of notes. I even became rather fond of my academics.

So, looking back at that naïve girl being dropped into the heart of a raging sea with little more than ambition in her sails, I realize there are a few things I would tell her now.

Campus can be demanding. There are lectures to attend, assignments to submit, exams to survive, and then there is the irresistible pull of everything else. Friendships, fellowships, events, hangouts, opportunities and a hundred other things competing for the same twenty four hours. The danger is not necessarily in having many things to do; it is in allowing everything to become important at once.

Maybe the whole point of campus is finding your sail and the people to sail with.

Find friends who will celebrate with you but who will also keep you accountable, pull you back when you begin to drift, and remind you of the person you said you wanted to become.

But above all, anchor yourself in the Word of God. Study it. Live by it. Draw wisdom from it. Let it shape not only your spiritual life, but your decisions, your priorities, your relationships and the way you navigate the freedom that campus offers.

So, every so often, I look back and laugh at the twists and turns of those years, the grand ambitions, the adventures, the unexpected detours, and the many versions of myself I met along the way.

But beneath the laughter is gratitude and appreciation that perhaps none of it was wasted.