Meet our three student writers: Ada, Ziggy, and Joey. You will learn more about who they are, where they're from, why they're doing this course, their hobbies, and life aspirations. Hello everyone. My name is Ada. I was born and raised in Kenya. My childhood years were a bit different to the other kids in my community because although I identify as Kenyan, my dad is German. So as a biracial Kenyan woman, I've always strive to achieve some type of balance in my life. I have a passion for the arts and worked as a graphic design artist for a number of years in Cape Town, South Africa. The high-stress commercial nature of the art I was producing in Cape Town slowly eroded the passion and meaning I associated with art. My need to be located in a supportive and affirming community and family environment where I could feel that I was really connecting with people was something I sorely missed. So at the age of 40-something, I made one of the most radical and life-changing decisions ever, which was to return home to Kenya and to start studying at the University of Nairobi. I'm now officially a first year Social Work student, a mother, a community theater organizer, and a mentor. I'm much older than my university peers, and I'm really nervous about being able to cope with the academic demands of university. But hey, I'm here to learn and to do really well. I've made a strategic choice to do this particular course. I need a basic introduction to the type of writing that happens at university level and the opportunity to practice. Writing your World, therefore, seems to be a good fit for me with respect to helping me prepare for the demands of academic writing. I'm hoping this course will provide me with the tools I need to succeed at university and help me to keep up with my younger, more energetic peers. Hi, guys, Ziggy here. I'm 19 years old and consider myself to be a proud Zulu male. I was born in South Africa and live with my parents in Johannesburg, the City of Gold. I view myself as a child of the African soil, and I'm very cognizant of my country's history and the privileges that I'm able to enjoy today. In a way, I think I represent the new African: one who knows his roots and also one who can compete and participate on much broader national and international platforms. I balance my love of music, sport, and social media with my quest for pursuing social justice. I have always been fascinated by the law: how it's processed, structured, and applied in society. Having an older sibling who is in her second year of studies has made me realize that as a prospective law student, I not only have to work hard, but also smart. I am no stranger to the online environment, but I have been made aware that I will not always be able to write and engage in this manner at university. So although I feel quite confident about my ideas and expressing those ideas, I need to be able to do that in a format that suits the requirements of academia. I think Writing your World is going to provide me with an opportunity to do just that. For me, learning how to become familiar with the ways in which to read and [inaudible] academic articles will allow me to engage in a very different way with my writing. The success to being a good lawyer is to be prepared. So Writing your World is an opportunity for me to work smart. I'm Joey, a hopeless romantic who loves cooking and going to the theater. Being creative has always been my great solace. It's a space where I can truly feel free and where I can grapple with life and all its contradictions and richness. I was always destined to study drama. This new chapter of my life is one which I want to explore to the fullest alongside others like me who also want to change the world. I'm, of course, aware that at university, I will have to study other disciplines alongside drama and that the types of reading and writing required will be very different to what I have been dabbling in with respect to my own creative works. I'm hoping that this course, Writing your World, is going to give me some useful insights into the tone and structure that authors adopt in their academic texts. I'm quite keen to show how academic authors, as producers of texts, go about giving voice to the people and themes they write about. I think that if I'm able to latch on to the ways in which this is done, then I'll be more prepared and confident for [inaudible] my creative flair into my own disciplinary writing when the time comes. For more, you can check out their profiles on the platform.