Niyitegeka: From studying arts, to excelling in IT

Michael Niyitegeka says it is not about what one studied but what they can do. photo by edgar r. batte

As a child, Michael Niyitegeka dreamt of becoming an engineer because he loved machines. His family lived close to a tea factory and next to their house was a garage where the tractors and other motor vehicles were repaired.
He recalls that even before he started school, he would escape from home and go through a trench in which he would spend half the day with mechanics, observing what they did with the tractors.
Being available, the mechanics would send him for a tool or two and even ask him to lend a helping hand, which got him dirty.

Childhood dream
As a teenager, he went on to rekindle his childhood interest. He became a spanner boy during his Senior Four (S.4).
His supervisor was impressed by the amount of energy and passion he put into helping out at the garage, and as a reward, he gave him a toolbox.
To date, he still has some spanners at home. He still enjoys fixing things at home. One of the subjects he studied at O’Level was technical drawing which fascinated him.
At the time, Makerere University had just introduced Urban Planning, which he applied for but did not get. He was admitted on government sponsorship, to pursue a Bachelor’s of Arts in Organisational Studies, Philosophy and French.

My degree
“I did not bother checking on the B. A. Arts list. I had decided to go and try my talents in Kyambogo University, which was a polytechnic then. A friend called me and said he had seen my name on the admission list of a B.A programme. It took forever to register. I went to the Dean, then Professor Oswald Ndolirile, and told him I could not study philosophy because I am not Catholic,” Niyitegeka recounts.
He had heard that the only people studying to become priests pursued Philosophy. When he made up his mind to study the course, Philosophy incidentally became his favourite subject. It taught him the art of reasoning.

The big decision
“Truth be told, I made a decision to stick in with the conviction that a degree is a degree and that what you do with it is what matters most. I was one of the top students in my year and as such was retained by the university as a junior lecturer.”
He spared time during the time he was retained by the university to enroll for a Master’s degree in Business Administration.
“Professor Venansius Baryamureeba, who was the Dean of the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, offered me a job, first to support the research arm of the faculty and later started teaching business related courses on the IT programme,” Niyitegeka recollects.
He adds: “However I remember vividly the label that I had. Some colleagues would refer to me as ‘you guys from humanities’ and that tickled me. I noticed that the only way to get accepted into this community was to speak their language. I read lots of stuff, but purposed to be different. I noticed majority were technical but had limited business exposure.”
Right there, he saw a niche he could expound his knowledge on. He brought a business angle to most of the opportunities, which earned him respect in the faculty.
He went on to head the examinations and academic programmes office for the entire faculty and later established the first corporate engagements office of the faculty of IT at Makerere University. To him, one chooses to define who they want to be, and the more one feeds the choice, the more it becomes a reality.

The reality
“Nobody cares what I studied. A career is not about what you studied but rather what you do consistently, and that it becomes part of you. Qualifications are great but they are only part of the game. You have to apply for the qualification to translate into a career,” he argues.
Surprisingly, Niyitegeka has discovered that after a while, one’s qualifications cease to be primary in an engagement because it is what you have done that becomes primary and the rest is secondary thus roots for anyone to invest in doing.
“Seize every opportunity to do something, and purpose to learn from it. The market is no longer defined by verticals as it were long time ago, the job market is extremely dynamic, that in many cases employers are looking for a surprise candidate not the one that fits a given job role.”

Grades
The IT enthusiast says grade should not be an ultimate in gauging a student or someone for a job qualification.
“Our education system could mean one’s ability to memorise and reproduce and not necessarily ability to apply. I have met students with first class grades but can hardly demonstrate any initiative in applying what they have learnt, not even on class project,” he observes.