KCSE exam star dreams of becoming an engineer

For Joan Twili, getting an A in KCSE felt like unboxing a tiny gift box to get a car key! A big surprise.

The 17-year-old sat the 2020 KCSE exam at the Kenya High School and managed to score an A in all her eight subjects except English in which she scored an A- (minus).

She was among the top girls at Kenya High School and has ambitions of becoming an engineer.

Twili who hails from Eastern, in an interview with the Star, said her love for machines and systems began early in her life.

Her earliest memory on this, she notes, is the love for toy cars and others perceived to fascinate boys.

Her love for engineering is linked to her love for art. She draws and says that pretty much, engineering design are a work of art that arouse her passion, creativity, and zeal to provide solutions.

"They fascinated me too but of course I did not have so many of them," she narrated during the Wednesday interview.

She says the school moulded her to be who she is and together with determination, hard work, and motivation from her parents, she managed to excel.

Twili also noted that teachers had a great impact on her performance. She said after completing the syllabus, the school had an individual student-teacher engagement routine.

This, she says, was her new favourite routine, as she would use the opportunity to consult in the areas she felt she did not understand concepts very well.

Twili is currently taking computer lessons. She also plans to join a music training afterwards saying music calms her mind.

Her dream to become an engineer was conceived when in a Physics class, she narrates, and enjoyed interacting with the tools and apparatus in the labs.

“Practical lessons felt shorter than the lessons in class, we had about three Physics lessons in our schools and this were the best days,” she says.

However, she has yet to decide what specialty of engineering she would wish to pursue. She currently is weighing the option of pursuing biomedical Engineering abroad.

Since completing her exams, she spends her time reading novels that she did not get time to read while in school as she concentrated on the literature set books.

Her dream is to give solutions in the future and make life easier through the use of machines.

Twili says she is disappointed that the country currently imports things as cheap as cups despite having the potential to produce them.

“I would love to see us produce our own products and machines, and that is why I am becoming an engineer,” she said.

She said she wants to demystify the perception that technical courses are for men and this she says, will be achieved through her success story that is in the making.

-Edited by SKanyara