There are campus life stories that begin with ambition. Others begin with friendship. For Andrea Wakori, Neville Ayora, and Margaret Mutura, their #SUnique story and journey at Strathmore became both.

It began in 2022, when they joined Strathmore University to pursue a Bachelor of Communication in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Like every fresh cohort of first-year students, they arrived with dreams, questions, nerves, and the quiet hope that they would find their place. At that time, none of them knew that the people they were meeting in those early days would become part of the most defining stories of their university journey.

Andrea already knew Margaret before university ever entered the picture: their families’ paths had crossed years earlier, long before either of them owned a Strathmore ID card. So when campus life began, they found themselves moving within the same circle of friends during those disorienting first weeks on campus when everyone was quietly auditioning each other for who might become a real friend. Neville came into the picture more gradually. “I did not meet them all at the same time,” he says. “I knew Andrea, then Margaret, and then we slowly gravitated into one friend group.”

None of them, in the beginning, imagined it would go this far. “I typically thought the relationships would remain at a classmate level,” Andrea admits. Margaret says something almost identical: “I did not actually think our friendship would come this far… It’s one of the small surprises that I have left university with.” Neville alone seemed to sense it early. “It was so obvious it was humbling,” he says, describing the strange certainty that crept over him: I knew that we were going to finish together.

Three separate, understated beginnings. One shared ending. That’s the shape of this story.

What Kept Three People Walking the Same Road

Ask any of them what actually held the friendship together for four years, and none of them reaches for anything dramatic; it was hundreds of small, unglamorous ones, repeated, week after week, semester after semester,  until they became a kind of architecture. Something lasting, built quietly, one ordinary day at a time.

It looked like lunch between classes, the three of them scattered around a table talking about nothing and everything: ambitions, faith, personal struggles, relationships, and the professor or assignments that had everyone terrified.

It looked like a text before an exam: did you study? Are you ready? It looked like showing up to each other’s birthday parties, and later, learning to be intentional about time together once the built-in structure of a shared timetable disappeared. Over time, they became more than classmates. They became accountability partners.

Interestingly, that accountability was not only academic. It reached into personal spaces too, conversations about spiritual life, relationships, decisions, growth, and the kind of people they wanted to become. They created a friendship where honesty could live comfortably, where encouragement was normal, and where each person had people around them who wanted to see them succeed.

And academically, they did well.

Year after year, they challenged each other to remain consistent. They pushed, prepared, revised, and showed up. The result was remarkable: they earned their places on the Dean’s List, not once as a lucky break, but as part of a continued pattern of discipline and excellence. It became a shared milestone, a reminder that friendship and ambition could walk together.

Then came fourth year.

Ask any undergraduate about the final stretch, and they will tell you: it is a season of pressure. The workload becomes heavier, the deadlines feel closer, and the reality of finishing begins to settle in. For Andrea, Neville, and Margaret, the fourth year, especially the research season, became one of the moments that truly tested the strength of their friendship.

It was demanding. It was tiring. At times, it was overwhelming. But it also became a season that showed what their friendship had quietly been building all along. Andrea remembers sitting with Neville, turning his scattered research interests into an actual, workable topic. Margaret, on the other hand, went door-to-door through classrooms collecting questionnaire data, then generously shared it when Andrea needed it too.

Sunday afternoons became theirs: spent together at a local café so often that its walls could practically bear their names. “This was a mix of academic and personal support,” Neville says, “because we debriefed on life matters, then took time for serious work.

Learning Went On Air

Academics were never the whole story.

Somewhere off to the side of lecture halls, exam timetables, coursework deadlines, and Dean’s List Recognition, all three of them found another space that shaped them in ways the classroom couldn’t fully capture – the Strath Hits Radio.

Launched in 2024 by the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Strath Hits Radio became a student-led platform featuring a mix of music, mental health conversations, celebrity lifestyle discussions, sports, politics, and campus-centered dialogue. But for Andrea, Neville, and Margaret, it became more than a radio project. It became a second classroom where the students put into practice what they had learned in lectures, testing and developing their leadership, creativity, responsibility, teamwork, resilience under pressure, and the discipline required to build something from the ground up.

Remarkably, all three of them poured themselves into the same project, each in a different role.

Andrea served as Head of the Radio Station, a role that became deeply personal to her. She calls Strath Hits Radio her “first baby”, the first major project that taught her what it means to begin with an idea, build it, nurture it, and keep it alive even when things become difficult. Through the radio, she experienced the excitement of creation, the stress of responsibility, and the growth that comes from leading something that matters.

Neville served as Head of Corporate Marketing, a role that sharpened his understanding of time, responsibility, and consistency. For him, the radio became a practical lesson in managing several moving parts at once: academics, leadership, internship responsibilities, and personal commitments. “It was about blocking time to deal with everything at its time,” he says.

Margaret served as Head of Programming, a role that opened her to new perspectives and helped her grow in confidence. For her, Strath Hits Radio became something close to a safe space. “It opened my eyes to a lot of different perspectives,” she says, “and sometimes even became a safe space after a long or hard day.”

In many ways, the radio reflected their own journey. It required patience, teamwork, discipline, and belief. It asked them to show up even when they were tired. It pushed them to balance creativity with responsibility. It gave them a platform to lead, to learn, and to understand themselves beyond grades and assignments. Balancing all of it: leadership, internships, coursework, friendship, and personal growth, looked different for each of them, and they found their own private discipline for keeping all the plates spinning.

What They’re Taking With Them

Every graduate leaves university with a transcript. These three are also leaving with something less official, and far harder to lose.

Andrea carries a single conversation: a mentor, Dr. Vincent Ogutu, reminding her during a chat about the radio station that it’s alright to simply say I don’t know. That humility, she says, has quietly reshaped how she leads: less pressure to have every answer, more willingness to invite other people’s ideas in. She calls it, without irony, the posture of a servant leader.

Neville carries a phrase that has become almost a personal motto: freedom with responsibility, his shorthand for what he believes Strathmore was really trying to instill in everyone who passed through it, and a standard he intends to hold himself to long after graduation.

Margaret carries a value in its purest form: excellence, not as a slogan, but as a daily instruction to herself. Put your whole hundred percent into whatever is in front of you. She says she hopes, quietly, to never lose that habit.

At the finish line…

August will bring the ceremony. The gowns. The photographs. The proud families. The congratulatory messages. The long-awaited moment when years of effort are finally recognised.

They will be carrying the memory of first year uncertainty, of slowly finding each other, of choosing friendship intentionally, of making the Dean’s List together, and of walking through the hardest seasons without letting one another fall behind.

Their story is proof that sometimes, the people you meet along the way become part of the destination. Sometimes, classmates become friends. Sometimes, friends become family. And sometimes, the people you start with really do walk with you all the way to the finish line.

As they step into the next chapter, the future looks bright for all three. Their sights are set on growing in the communications industry, carrying with them the discipline, creativity, resilience, and excellence shaped through their Strathmore journey.

Give them a few more years, and it will be exciting to see the spaces they will occupy, the stories they will tell, the conversations they will shape, and the impact they will create. They are #MadeInSU, and they are ready to #GoPlacesWithSU.

Article written by: Jemmy M, Kamau