I’ve spent years ghostwriting academic papers for students in Ivy League schools and other prestigious universities around the world. Research proposals, dissertations, theses… you name it, I’ve written it. Ironically, when it came time to write my own research project a few years back for a diploma in business management, I thought I had it all figured out. I mean, how hard could it be? The title of my research was ambitious enough, piece of cake for a person who loved books, and one who had spent some time in the sector: Factors Affecting the Profitability of Security Firms in Kenya. My case study? Radar Security, a well-known player in the local market. To be honest with the best HR I ever worked with. I had began by reaching out to the top security firms in the industry. The likes of G4S, SGA, Securex, Radar, and BM Security. My strategy was to get my foot in the door, either through employment or volunteering. Atleast I get an opportunity and the the rest would flow.
Volunteering in the security industry is no walk in the park. For all they knew, I could have been a spy gathering sensitive information under the guise of academic research. Despite the skepticism, one firm eventually gave me a chance. My plan was simple: gain experience, blend my military background with corporate knowledge, and ultimately become a security hotshot in the region. But first, I had to complete that diploma. Why volunteering? Sometimes in this life you have to trade something for something, faith is all I had at the time. I knew I was well suited for this. I had volunteered the previous year and it wasnt going to be a hard thing to do this time round.
I will tell the story of the work place some other time, I want to focus on the academics element for now. I threw myself into the work. For months, I was in the “trenches”, investigating, interrogating, observing, and collecting data. I leveraged my experience with the NGO I had volunteered with the previous year and incorporated technology to streamline the data collection process. You’ve probably heard of Kobo collect. It wasn’t just a research project; it was an immersion into the gritty reality of Kenya’s security industry. I even had a data analyst. A friend we had worked with collecting Data with in this city for other purposes.
Then the academic bureaucracy kicked in. My supervisors changed three times. Each new one came with fresh ideas about what my project should look like, none of which aligned with the raw data I had painstakingly collected on the ground. When I argued for instance; that ‘illiteracy among guards was a significant factor in profitability’… imagine a security guard unable to write a report or articulate themselves properly, give directions properly… Asking for chai and telling you about how economy has been tough lately as you access every building you have to… I was told it “didn’t make sense.”
My on-the-ground findings were dismissed as “invalid.” Instead, I was encouraged to replicate what had already been done before, boiling down my research to a few generic questions – just for the sake. I went from analyzing complex, real-world security issues to producing a sanitized report that barely scratched the surface. Meaning, academic research is not necesarily for the upgrade of society but just for the sake of “program” as we called it in the military. Doing things because they are supposed to be done or they are scheduled to be done… Consider this, when was the last time you ever reflected why we raise the flag as the flag was being raised… It was like trying to explain the chaos of a battlefield using a children’s coloring book. To them, character didn’t matter, education background didn’t matter… I should’ve just paid the River Road cartel to do my project and smile myself to a distinction.
In the end, my project turned out to be one of my worst academic performances. On paper, it was a mess. That is one of the units I failed alongside my attachment – where my supervisor never even passed by for follow up. Who fails practical papers? But on the ground? The volunteer job evolved into a management position (Volunteer to mean, I walked to the Hr’s office and asked them to give me an opportunity to volunteer in the organisation in exchange for my academic credits). Within six months, I was offered another lucrative contract in the security industry. My fieldwork had paid off, even if my project hadn’t. The experience exposed to me an uncomfortable truth about Kenya’s education system: it’s built on compromise. There’s a vast disconnect between what’s taught in the classroom and what happens in the real world. Academia often prioritizes polished narratives over messy realities, leaving students like me caught in the middle. Luckily, with the pace that the world is moving at, unless for some core practical sectors, most of the classrooms are mainly to enhace the teachability of minds, adaptability. Thats why we have doctors who have garages as their side hobby, teachers running acres of farms, chef’s in the construction industry and hotel managers in real estate. It is not a win win situation as such because not most have been taught to adapt.
So, if you see me in a classroom today, it’s not because I’m chasing greener pastures. I genuinely love learning. But the exams? The endless bureaucracy? Let’s just say they often feel like an elaborate scam. The irony isn’t lost on me. While my research project may have been a bureaucratic flop, it gave me the tools to thrive in other industries. Currently, security is just part of something I did in the past with skills here and there applied once in a while. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that real education happens beyond the classroom walls. And sometimes, failure on paper is the first step toward success in life. That is how we are in the construction industry now, doing things that are not even being taught in school where I come from. We do have a long way to go. At the end of the day, we aren’t what we were when we got into class vs when we left.