Kelvin Gitahi

Student

“Students are much more open and demanding in the classrooms here. It’s far more traditional in Kenya: You do not challenge your teachers there.”

“It’s a beautiful country and its people are the most beautiful thing of all,” says Kelvin Gitahi of his native Kenya. “It’s an amazing country because it continually progresses, avoiding stagnation But its huge potential is not utilized to the maximum. Greed and corruption have been interjected into the system. I believe,” he continues, “that it’s fortunate that the Kenyan youth who have come here are so driven by the need to excel in whatever they’re doing. These are precisely the qualities that my country is in need of, in terms of leadership.”

Kelvin has some very practical reasons for coming to SMC to study—coupled with some dreams. “Every youth in Kenya wants to come to the US to study because we know that education here is extremely advanced. At the same time, you can have so many experiences because the US is moving forward at an enormous pace. It is a dream of most of us,” he continues, “to become educated here and then—when we return home—we’ll be ahead of our peers and, perhaps, even our older people.” And though he’s studying poli-sci at SMC—while driving his tiny ‘truck’ around campus to earn needed money—it’s another arena that he plans to enter when he returns to Kenya.

“My goal is to operate my own music studio and produce the music of Kenya, which is yet another untapped industry,” says Kelvin. “I’ll become an established businessman who produces quality work in whatever I do. Quality,” he adds, “is really the only thing that has ever attracted me.”

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