by Yvonne Wangare

Many students prefer attending colleges that are far from home, or rather, they want to be as far away from their parents as possible. Since college life is perceived to be all about freedom, students take pride in going to colleges where the folks won’t be right next door, so there will be no rules to adhere to. I shared this perspective, until the day it dawned on me that I would be spending my next four years thousands of miles away from home, Nairobi, Kenya (approximately 7200 miles as the crow flies). Leaving everything that I had been accustomed to for the last twenty years for a land on which I had never set foot was not easy—it was possible (as Mummy’s little girl), but it was definitely a struggle. But every so often I sit here at MIT and wonder: did my predecessors feel the same way when they set out to study overseas or when they left their hometowns to go seek an education that challenged their communities’ norms? What was it like for them here at MIT and how did they handle the hurdles they faced?

MIT was founded in 1861, but it was not until 1888 that the first black student, Robert Robinson Taylor, enrolled at the Institute. Although his friends and relatives back home in North Carolina expressed a lot of skeptism about his attending MIT, he was quite enthusiastic about going to the instituition with the best architecture program. “When it was known that I was to leave my home to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” Taylor later recalled, “many of the home people asked, What is the use? And a question of similar nature was asked by many in other places. After graduation, what? Where is the field?”[i]At the time, a black being so ambitious was not quite conventional, and was not taken too well by much of society. Nevertheless, four years later Taylor became successful, his record being above the class average; in fact, it may have been at or near the top of his class.[ii]

The first black woman to attend MIT was Marie Celeste Turner in 1905. In 1964 came the remarkable Shirley A. Jackson, whose display can be seen along the Infinite Corridor after Lobby 10. She generally experienced isolation—eating alone in the cafeteria, not being allowed to join study groups in her dorm, among other things. There were only two black women in her class at the time, and apparently no one could tell them apart. Despite all this, “[her] motivation was less to ‘show them’ than to be successful for [her]self.”[iii] She pursued a degree in theoretical physics and ended up staying at MIT for her doctoral work so as to encourage more African-American students to attend MIT. She was the first black woman to receive a Ph.D. from the Institute. There are times I experience the same solitude, and feel like I cannot relate to the people around me. I admire Shirley Jackson because she did not let this affect her ability to succeed; she is an inspiration to me. Moreover, Ms. Jackson was quite influential. As an undergraduate, she was at the forefront of the establishment of the Black Students Union which was formed in 1968 to advocate for the increase of black students on campus. It led to Project Epsilon which brought in five black students for a summer program to give them pre-freshman training, which later led to the start of the Interphase Program in 1969. That year, MIT admitted fifty-eight black students.

The Black Students Union played a significant role in the increase of the population of blacks and other minorities at MIT, and subsequently the formation of so many other programs and societies that acted as support and also provided academic assistance to these communities. For instance, it was through the efforts of this Union that the National Society of Black Engineers-MIT and the Office for Minority Education were established. The latter, especially, was geared to promote academic excellence for all the students. I can personally testify that the OME has really helped me when I needed tutoring for a class in which I am not doing so well. It is also an environment where I make friends as we work on homework together.

However, a century ago the situation facing African students at home, as well as at MIT, were vastly different. The mid-1900s in Africa were still characterized by colonial rule but most countries were less than a decade away from gaining independence. By this time, the region had quite a number of elites; some led their people in the fight for decolonization, while others decided to seek higher education abroad to gain the knowledge and skills needed to develop their countries after acquiring autonomy. They initiated quite a number of airlift programs at that time to encourage many to fly out to places such as the US and Europe for the purpose aforementioned, although air transport was not as popular then as it is now (this might have been one of the reasons there were not as many African students overseas).

Daniel Adebiyi Badejo, a Nigerian, was probably the first African student to attend MIT (1949- 1953). He prepared at Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia, where he received a B.S. Degree (Math) Summa Cum Laude in the summer of 1950.[iv] He then came to MIT where he studied Course 1 (Civil Engineering), and was involved in the Department of Civil and Sanitary Engineering. He eventually wrote two books:  Soil-cement stabilization for highways[v] in 1953 and An investigation of the effects of chemical admixtures on cement treated clay[vi] in 1954.

Records suggest that 1951 saw the first two students from Kenya come to MIT. However, the names indicate that one was British and the other an Indian, implying that some of the early African students accepted by the Institute might not have been African natives but were most likely settlers. In the 1970s, however, three students marked the beginning of Kenyan natives’ study at this renowned technical institution. Karuga James, Kobiah Samuel, and Ndungu Nijoki belonged to the classes of 1974, 1978 and 1979 respectively. It is interesting to note that they were all graduate students in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (Course 11). It is reasonable to attribute a motive behind this. Kenya had gained independence ten or so years before but there were still a large number of white settlers occupying the land, both in the highland areas and in the cities. During colonization, the British had taken massive tracts of land from the natives, without the latters’ permission, for the purpose of developing agricultural capitalism in the colony. They then had these people, who had been left homeless, provide labor for the agricultural fields they owned. In his famous thesis, Origins of squatting and community organization in Nairobi, which was submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in May 1978 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in City Planning, Kobiah Samuel Mugwika traces squatting[vii] to its roots and attributes it largely to “[being] the form of labor seen as best fulfilling the needs of agricultural development in the European settlement areas.”[viii]From this paper, it is clear that squatting was a major problem in Kenya. It is still a problem today because, with the development of cities like Nairobi, the demand for cheap labor has risen to meet the industrial needs. There has been an increase in rural-urban migration, and since the government cannot provide the necessary services for this population, it has resorted to taking land to provide the laborers with settlement.

It is therefore no surprise that these three Kenyan students in the 1970a all went for Course 11—to provide people with legal settlements, hence combating the squatting problem and helping to endure sustainability in community designs.  It is also noteworthy that in his acknowledgments, Kobiah mentions that the Urban Industrial and Rural Mission (UIRM) of the World Council of Churches gave him a scholarship to study at MIT[ix]. So we can deduce that missionary organizations were chiefly responsible for sending early students to institutions abroad to further their studies.

Most of the Kenyans who attended MIT actually went back home after the completion of their degrees. However, there are those who didn’t like Gakio Daniel, 1988, and Odero Christine A., 1992. The former studied Aeronautics and Astronautics (Course 16) and since Kenya has no market for this profession, his staying in the US and getting a job here was logical. The latter majored in Electrical Science and Engineering (Course 6-1) and later got a job in California, where she now likely still lives. On the other hand, Mbowa Aaron K., 1990, who took Chemical Engineering (Course 10), decided to stay in the US but later on moved back home where he became the head of the Information Technology department in one of Kenya’s most distinguished high schools.

I can only imagine the reactions of the communities from which the above-mentioned Kenyans came, when they heard of these students’ admission at MIT. People within these communities might well have disdained this idea since they associated anything to do with the “white man” as a barrier to maintaining a people’s culture (an attitude that developed during the colonial period). But for those who knew that the students were going to gain effective knowledge which they would apply to make Kenya a better place, they undoubtedly took this as a huge achievement. A few decades later and getting into MIT is DEFINITELY a big deal, as in my case. It is not like back then when everyone would question one’s decision to study abroad, let alone question MIT. For instance, when I got in, my mother took great pride in telling people I was admitted into MIT, leaving everyone in awe. And for those who had never heard of MIT, just the fact that I would be going to the US made them believe that I was at the top.

As a 21^st century international student here at MIT, I can say that getting here has been a journey in itself. Getting my acceptance letter was just the beginning—nothing thereafter was guaranteed. I am not sure whether it was just as much of an effort for the likes of Kobiah as it was for me finalizing my enrollment at MIT by fulfilling all the “Countdown to Campus” requirements. Most of the time I had to travel blocks away from where I lived just to print out and scan papers to send to MIT. Fortunately, I kept in contact with one or two Kenyan upperclassmen who assisted me, especially when choosing a dorm, and helped me understand what I had to do before arriving on campus. The International Students Office was also very helpful particularly in the preparation of the documents I would use in my visa application (the most stressful process of all). A month later, several people were escorting me to the airport to bid me farewell. That night before leaving for the airport, I vividly recall being summoned by many, from my relatives to my neighbors, to hear a piece or two of advice. “Conquer America, don’t let it conquer you,” I remember an aunt telling me. Then at the Emirates international flights terminal, tears marked my departure. I know my mother was the strongest of us all but I am sure she broke down when my absence hit her later that night. It was the saddest moment in my life. Never before had I travelled by myself outside Nairobi, let alone outside the country. I was terrified of what I would meet on the other side; everything was so uncertain.

Settling down here at MIT has proved to be easier than I first expected due to the many support systems on campus. The international student orientation, organized by the ISO during the first week of school, was a time for me to meet some of my closest friends. The diversity at MIT is remarkable. There’s representation of each country in Africa and most other parts of the world. Being a member of iHouse, a dorm dedicated to international development, has also given me the opportunity to interact with different cultures. Organizations such as the Black Students Union and the African Students Organization, in which many of the alumni I mentioned earlier were also members, have also provided support in several ways and made MIT feel like home; for instance, the latter organized an African event about a week ago and having my motherland’s food and dancing to her music and interacting with her people was wonderful.

I came to MIT with the intention of majoring in Course 1 – Civil Engineering. This department is actually one of the oldest in the Institute; it’s no wonder MIT is currently the best school in the world in this field. Contrary to some of the alumni’s decision to stay in the U.S., I hope to go back home and use my knowledge to help develop my country’s infrastructure. This is one of the major reasons I chose to live in iHouse. Here, we learn how to engage ourselves effectively in development projects in third world countries, an example being a sanitation project we are presently working on in a small village in Mexico. I am positive that MIT has always been about exposing its students to hands-on experiences in technical fields and that is why it produces competent graduates who are usually so successful in their careers.

In its diversification efforts, MIT has seen an increase in the population of Africans and international students as a whole in its community, hence making it feasible for students like myself to study here. The data in the table[x] below provides a summary of the increases in MIT’s foreign alumni from 1925-1993, years when remarkable advances were made.

Distribution of Alumni

	1925	1948	1974	1988	1993
Total Foreign	951	2208	5307	8480	10170
Africa	14	39	157	357	357
Kenya	–	–	5	12	16
Nigeria	–	1	20	81	92
Union of South Africa	7	25	64	89	100

 

Having been here for just two months and a couple of weeks, I feel as if I have been here four years. MIT is tough, and it will only get tougher. In addition, being away from home takes this challenge to a whole new level. But seeing as those who were here before me, especially those from my own hometown, endured the struggles they faced and eventually thrived, why shouldn’t I do the same?