Anne’s love and passion for the hospitality sector and impacting knowledge to students is indisputable, and as soon as one listens to her, it is obvious that she strongly wants to make her mark here.  The Hospitality and Management student from the Centre for Tourism and Hospitality (CTH), awaits anxiously for the 1^stclass honours award in the upcoming 2017 graduation ceremony.

Anne, currently a restaurant manager at a city hotel in Nairobi, is a remarkably experienced hospitality teacher from Kibondeni College, and has travelled far and wide doing what she does best – teaching. Emerging top in her undergraduate class was not easy; it can be argued that her vast experience in the industry definitely came in handy.

The fluent French speaker – a language that she learned and perfected at Yaoundé, Cameron, while working and teaching there, chose Strathmore University for the reason that it has always been her desire to study in the institution. Anne joined Strathmore on 25^th August 2014.

‘From my own assessment, Strathmore University has always been and will forever be a reputable institution of higher learning My enrolment application was accepted and at that moment I knew that my long-awaited dream was turning into reality. After excelling in all my entry tests, I was given the green light to start.’  

Her ‘academics’ journey has not been a rosy one. Anne, has been studying part-time, after work. Time management, self-discipline and planning are all key as such, her daily routine had to change, and as intricate as it was, Anne agrees that it was a balancing act between work and school.

‘At the beginning, balancing work and school proved to be an uphill task. In the course of juggling between work and school, I gradually developed a strategy that aided me in balancing the two areas. At work, I used to work smart and push myself to deliver the best. I also used to challenge my employees to deliver good results. On the reading front, I tried as much as possible to understand everything that was being taught in class in every lecture. My social life became extinct. I used to come to school every Sunday and I would be in the library from morning to evening, this had become my safe haven.’ she comments.

Anne was determined to go to great lengths just to succeed. Part of the reason why the sixth born in a family of nine children was pulling out all the stops, was because she wanted to enrich herself by being a well-informed hospitality teacher. The need for setting a good example to her younger siblings was another fundamental reason that motivated her to go the extra mile.

‘I want my younger siblings to join Strathmore University to pursue their studies. I had to work extra hard so that they could see that nothing good in life comes easy. For them to start embracing a good reading culture, I had to set a good example for them,’ she says.

Her research topic for the 4^th year project was ‘The Assessment of Green factors in the Hospitality Industry.’ The global warming phenomenon worries Anne and this is the reason why she opted to settle on her choice of topic. Anne laments that the hospitality industry uses lots of resources which are non-renewable, hence the need to overhaul some of the conventional ways of doing business in the industry.

Dr. Lucy Gikonyo – Academic Director and Senior Lecturer at CTH, was her research supervisor, and Anne is very appreciative that her supervisor has supported her every step of the way.

When she is not working or studying, Anne enjoys online translation related work – translating English texts to French and vice versa.

Congratulations to Anne Wanjiku Njogu on her achievement!!!