By Isaac Akugizibwe

KIU, Main Campus - Victoria Vira Mathina is a Congolese national pursuing a master's degree of science in Mass Communication at KIU.

 Despite the COVID-19 lockdown delaying her KIU dream, she is happy that at least the majority of her expectations are still intact.

From the conflict-infested Kivu Province in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mathina came to Uganda with hopes of finding the university of her dreams, one with an undisputed international reputation.

She also wished to live in an environment of harmony, adventure and thirst for excellence. There was no other place with such apart from KIU, Uganda's leading private university.

"I came looking for a great university of great reputation and probably because of what I had heard and seen, KIU stood out," Mathina admits.

In February 2021, Mathina joined KIU but unfortunately, she joined during one of the toughest times for the university as well as the whole education sector because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like all new students at the time, she attended her orientation virtually hence missing out on the best of the university's ultimate hospitality.

Even when the government allowed schools to reopen in March 2021, she did not get the best of KIU's ever calm and breathtaking adventurous atmosphere because she was always afraid of contracting the contagious COVID-19. 

She would go home immediately after lectures until another lockdown was announced in June following a surge of new COVID-19 infections.

"The  COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown really disturbed me and actually cut short some of my expectations but maybe because of the fact that I am still at the beginning, I have to wait until the end to have it all," Mathina laments.

"Well, even if some of the expectations still hang by a thread, the university is trying to make things easier for us in terms of the quality of service but poor network and the need for maximum technical attention remain our biggest challenge," she adds.

With only four months to make a year in Kansanga, Mathina is hopeful everything she dreamt of at KIU will come to pass.

As rumours of the physical reopening of schools continue to float around, she can no longer wait to take to campus in search of treasure and pleasure.

Courtesy Photo