Arlana Shikongo - WIS Graduate 2013

Wow! 10 years have flown by, and just like that I am reminded of how quickly I am aging.

Careful kids, before you know it you'll be pushing 30, paying mortgages and waging war against an unending recession.

Jokes aside, here is a brief life update:

I have been back in Namibia since 2018, after four years of university in upstate New York and one year working in Chicago.

When I returned home with my BA in Journalism, I started working for The Namibian. I started as a junior reporter and worked my way up to assistant editor of the newspaper's multimedia desk.

In 2021, the newspaper ventured into radio and launched Desert Radio, where I worked as a news anchor and presenter for the past year and a half.

I have now resigned from the newspaper and radio, to explore new horizons on the journalism landscape as a freelancer and take on opportunities for international reporting.

As I write this, it really baffles and amuses me how much I have been able to do since I graduated from WIS; and reminds me of how much that experience propelled me into living my dreams.

During IB, I did a job shadowing at The Namibian for two months, and it was that exchange that left a memory of my ambitions in the minds of the people I got to work with at that time. When I came back to Namibia and sent in my resume, they called me immediately to join them briefly as an intern and pick up where I left off.

Who would have thought that that time would be the catalyst into my career a few years later.

Life has been quite the journey, but I think fondly of my time at WIS because it truly punctuates all I have been able to achieve.

From being able to study internationally at an acclaimed journalism school in the United States, to living and working in Chicago and then coming home to work at my dream Namibian publication - every one of those achievements was aided by my studies at WIS.

When we are young, dough-eyed teenagers, it often goes over our heads how important those educational foundations are for the future.