“Being a sports scholar and captain of Strathmore’s Basketball team helped me realize that education is about building a solid character that’s worthy of the human race” says Allan Owino, an alumnus of the Bachelor of Business Information Technology (BBIT) – Class of 2017.

Strathmore Alumni Conversations

On Friday August 7^th, 2020, the Strathmore Alumni Relations team held another episode of the Alumni Webinar Series dubbed “Let’s talk about Journalism and Communication”. Attending as a guest speaker was Allan Owino, who besides being a Strathmore alumnus, is a News Anchor and TV Host at K24 TV. The moderator of the webinar was Rose Awuor, a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies student.

This session was mainly attended by Communications students whose main area of concern was how Allan who hails from a BBIT background landed a chance on TV when he could have alternatively chosen to pursue a profession as a basketball player. To begin with, Allan advised the participants to dream logically, meaning that you have to dream while considering the circumstances within your environment. To explain this insight, he took a trip down memory lane on how he had once prepared himself to travel abroad to better his skills in professional basketball but, when the day of the flight came, his dreams were tossed into the bin when his travel documents had been denied. However, he chose to dream logically by finding his fit into the media industry.

Value of education

The participants agreed that education has its challenges which may bring one down to giving up and perhaps deferring studies. On the other hand, Allan stated that “Education is not everything, but it is something”, therefore, “do your level best to complete studies despite the ups and downs.” He emphasized the need to find what you are gifted in and stop doing what you are good at because a gift is done to the best of one’s capability. “What else can you do?” is a challenge that Allan posed to the participants.

Allan also agreed that the demands of work and school can be difficult to cope with sometimes, but it is important for you to take time to work on your emotional, mental, and physical self for it helps with one’s overall well-being. While at it, know and own your worth for this enables one to approach life with confidence.

When asked about the position of social media in journalism, Allan advised the attendees to “work hard but at the end of the day, advertise your work because someone is always watching.” With the wake of social media and the availability of an array of platforms for content development and dissemination, a journalism student is advised to consistently create content and make good use of these social media platforms. The speaker also encouraged the attendees to work on their relationships with other people. “Your first asset is your relationship with people; therefore learn how to speak to people, learn how to approach people, and learn how well to keep people in check whenever they are in the wrong because these are the same people with whom you’ll share your content” says Allan.

Competitive job market

The attendees also raised concerns about the competitive job market and the availability of job opportunities in the media industry. Allan went ahead to recommend that one should strive to get your foot into the door. “Take that internship opportunity as it will provide an environment in which you may make moves. The money will follow.” In addition, he mentioned that the world doesn’t owe us anything, hence opportunities are meant to be created and taken – not given. “Create that opportunity to find your fit in this crazy world” advises Allan.

As a parting shot, Allan concluded by pointing out that in the journalism and communication field, one should have a mentor to hold your hand along the professional journey, but that should not mean that you try to “become” them.

This article was written by Odhiambo Obonyo.

 

Would you like to share your experience of living through the circumstances brought by the Covid-19 pandemic? Kindly email: communications@strathmore.edu