Kingstar stepped onto the UEW Main Campus with his dreams re-shaped but not destroyed.
He had told himself: "If ICT no come, I go master Mathematics pass anybody."
The orientation week passed in a blur long speeches, campus tours, and late-night group chats in the hostel, filled with confusion and excitement.
Then came Week One of Lectures.
In the large lecture hall of the Basic Education Department, students filled every seat, some sitting on windowsills or leaning at the back.
The course was "Foundations of Number and Algebra."
The lecturer a calm man with grey-streaked hair and round glasses walked in and dropped a question on the board.
"If the number of subsets of a set is 64, how many elements are in the set?"
The whole class went silent.
Kingstar, who had been quietly sitting in the second row with his notebook already open, raised his hand.
"Sir, the number of subsets of a set is 2ⁿ. If 2ⁿ = 64, then n = 6. So, the set has 6 elements."
The lecturer paused.
Smiled.
"Correct. What's your name again?"
"Kingstar, sir."
From the back, someone whispered loudly, "Herh… this guy be real Prof o!"
The name stuck instantly.
Every time he answered a question which was often someone would yell "Ei Prof!"
Even students from other departments started recognizing him.
Some thought he had done university courses before. Others believed he was a SHS re-sit. But none of that was true he was just finally doing what he loved best:
Mathematics.
And he was finally being seen for it.
By the end of the week, lecturers knew his name. Class reps asked him to form study groups. Girls asked him to help them understand equations.
But he wasn't distracted this time.
He'd made mistakes before.
Now, it was focus or nothing.