Bridges or Barriers: exploring the admission dilemma.

 In the heart of higher education, the journey from aspirations to admission is often a tale of twist and turns. many students walk on this path with dreams and ambitions just as they envision, only to find themselves navigating a different unexpected terrain. This feeling can be very depressing when on one day, as you are going through the placement portals for a degree, you find you are allocated to a different course than that u envisioned yourself to do. This feeling generates a sense of doubt and makes one feel he/she is not enough, more so if the whole community and family were expecting you to be allocated what you had applied for.

"I remember when I was applying for my higher education studies, I applied for a degree in Information Technology. I was eager for the allocation which took two weeks for them to give feedback. In those two weeks I was so overjoyed since I knew that I had qualified and was eligible to do the course that I had dreamed off. But to my surprise, I was called for a degree completely different from what he had applied for" Derrick said( a first year at Moi University).

Derrick also says that he later found out that the reason that made him not to be allocated a degree in Information Technology was because the criteria that was used for admission was base upon the first best top performance given the first chance, and the spaces that were left was up for grabs for many people which also they chose the best of the best thus making him being left out. This made him opt for another degree completely different from what he envisioned to do.

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Why is this so, is it because the spaces allocated for the degree are too few to accommodate all that have applied?, is it because the resources are not enough to facilitate a huge number?. Well this we will never know unless the institutions and the government authorities responsible tell us. But if it is true, that it is because of the factors mentioned or even others that we don't know of that shapes the admission criteria being used, then they should be able to come up with the best possible ways to address this matter. On my opinion, if it is inadequate slots to handle the huge number of students, then they should build up more institutions.

Imagine a student going through a completely different path than what he envisioned, or even one being forced to start from a lower level of what he/she wanted to do and yet she/he had already qualified to start from a comparatively higher level. This is tiring and boring and can bring about mental breakdown.

"When life gives you, lemon make lemonade" Derrick said. To him the admission dilemma that faces many students did not make him loose hope, but to him he chose to make the best out of it and decided to do a degree in Information Science of which in it, it has a department of Information Technology, To him he made it a win to himself.

Its not the end of the road if u have encountered an admission dilemma before, you can opt to start from scratch and still achieve your dream or you can choose to go on another path that is yes, completely different but not completely far from what you wanted.

All of us should unite and address this dilemma of admission so that it can achieve its role of building bridges to students and their dreams and not barriers.