why I am no longer pursuing a degree?

Preface

My name is Abdullahi M Hersi in two thousand and fifteen I graduate a high school and I applied to university for the first time it was fun and exciting, I was an innocent teenager who don’t have any idea about university and college.

I was born and rise in Mogadishu a city that has experienced long and devastating wars, I was there most of them since I was born in the middle of the war.

But this blog is not about my biography is about the university and why a degree hasn’t made any meaning or sense in my life at this time and this day and age.

These are the thoughts that I have today I’m always willing to change my mind for positive things.

Introduction   

So let's start my story in university, In 2015 was a great year and a bad year for me, I lost one of my best friends to an unknown illness he drastically die, at that time was the first time I shed tears on my eyes on someone's death, Because for me at that time death due to blast, grenades, and, etc, was normal but someone who was young and healthy like me was a hard thing to cope and even I watch him playing a game of soccer in the afternoon and heard that he died suddenly at the evening was devastating for me.

Ilyas Mohamed may Allah give him his mercy was a great friend he was my Barber he used to cut and style my hair, I will never forget the time we used to hang out together. May his soul rest in paradise.

And on the other hand, that year was exciting because I graduate highschool and step foot in an era of adulthood, and made my own decisions. So my first decision I want to apply to a university, but I haven’t any idea what to study, but there were social norms that becoming a doctor or an engineer is the best thing to do in the university so back in my head there are only two options and there is another thing that my family wasn’t financially strong and they can’t pay my tuition if apply for a privet university. So I had only one option apply to the only public university in my city, So I applied to the Somali National University (SNU), it is the only public institute and it is only reopened one year at the time I was applying.

So I prepared my application and then I realize that they don’t have an engineering department in the university so they have a medicine department and other options so in the application you have to make three options.

I made mine in this sequence of three Medicine, Economics, and Agriculture, and then I sat on an admission exam.

Fortunately, I passed, several hundred students had put their applications on medicine and only seventy students were taken I was one of the seventy, and then the university had asked us to sign some papers but I thought that I will sign by my self but they said it must sign by a guardian like a parent and you together, but it was jaw-dropping and surprise to me I was nearly 18 years old an adult but they still want me a guardian, I accepted and I brought my mother to the university and she and I signed the papers, So October third was the first day I sat on university class at a foundation course, things were going smooth and slowly adapting until I was started at the first semester of my medicine courses things went miserable my expectations are gone the university even didn’t have a curriculum that they can present us we don’t know what we are going do, things didn’t organize as I was expected, lecturer and teachers wasn’t the way I expected everything was a huge mess.

Then later on I realize even the administration system of the university is built on Tribalism, and the administration system is built on what I call a semi-apartheid system called four-point five 4.5, that the government of Somalia uses. 

That is the first time when I questioned where my morals were? Did I accept these things or will I quiet. My views about the clan and clan systems in Somalia are public and you will get it on my social media platforms like Twitter.

So back in my head, I had to quit is the best option for me, but my parent want me a justification Tribalism wasn’t a huge thing for them, so I kept waiting for the right time to come and it kept going for more than three years till I finally quit and hopped on another major moral thing to me but justifies my parent wich I don’t want to state here in this blog. 

I did not regret the time and effort I put in and my lack of degree at nearly seven years since my high school graduation.

Why I’m no longer pursuing a degree?

This is a good question and a hard one, but may I answer briefly is I’m pursuing education rather than a degree because education is a life-long thing that you couldn’t get fed up or full.

I’m always eager to seek knowledge, I know there are so many privileges that cames when you have a degree like good employment and financial incomes and etc, this is a good argument it is very hard to dismiss. This social hierarchy is built in the world systems and it's a great thing that is very hard to get rid of, some developed countries like the United States are making progress towards reducing these social hierarchy companies like google employing non-degree holding programmers and other positions.

But the third world countries yet reached that school is not important and education is.

Universities in Somalia.

I don’t want to let go of this topic, I always want to talk about it, my country is corrupt in everywhere even we reached a level we couldn’t differentiate what is corruption and what is not, I think it runs on our bloodstream and we are also full of lies, we lie everything, we lie to ourselves we lie to other people, our minds are full of packages of lies.

Lying in our society is like drinking liquids water or juices it is not a major thing.

So like every sector of our society corruption and lies are everywhere it is undeniable.

The universities are a part of corruption, for now, I can get any degree that I want the only thing they care about is money, so as the student, they collect as many students as they could get to make a lot of money. 

So we have seen dozens of students on social media graduating from universities and holding thesis books that they never wrote a paragraph of it.

So they are lying to themselves and to the public, I even heard there are places in the market that prepares you and write your thesis and then you pay them, that is the way they make money and operate, even the small percentage who wrote their thesis by them, are coping-pasting and they don’t mention it the references so they are cheating and universities are aware of it, how come someone could defend a thesis that he never wrote a paragraph of it in a panel of supervisors and professors.

I am not alienating myself, I was like them, I was thinking like them no long ago, it is not a hard thing for me I could cope with it.

My country is recovering from three-decades-long devastating civil wars so all these things could happen, I am very optimistic when it comes to my country, one day my country will quit all these things like wars, tribalism, injustice, lack of education, droughts and etc.

I am not a politician and didn’t know anything about politics but I hope one day we will get Somali politicians who have common sense and revolutionize our governance.

“While there is a life the is hope” Stephen Hawking.

Conclusion 

Why I am no longer pursuing a degree?

This is a big question I don’t think the brief answer on a small blog could ever get I satisfying answer, but in my head, it is very satisfying, and don’t want anybody to give up on their reality and their dreams towards getting a degree or they had meaning why they are doing.

But I only wrote for this blog to get a glimpse of the argument on the other side.

And there is also another thing that persuaded me to write this blog, how could you prove yourself that you have an education if you don’t have a degree?

This is a valid question for a lot of people, but on my side is nonsense.

If I want to prove something for who people that I mentioned above who is corrupted and unprincipled. Another good answer is following the path that some put you in place, there is a quotation that says “Followers will never know how hard the leader tries to create path” unknown.

I think this is a brief and understandable answer people have justifications to follow what is prepared for them.