B (1:49)

You know, in our local dialects tree, one of the languages we have in Ghana, they call something krachi and araba. Yeah, My parents, I think my mother didn't have a university degree.

A (2:08)

Okay.

B (2:09)

She struggles to speak English. So her son being a pharmacist and crutchy is a vibe for her.

A (2:19)

Right. Right.

B (2:20)

Yeah.

A (2:21)

Right.

B (2:21)

Now to Even make it worse is when you travel abroad, whether you are struggling or not, they don't care.

C (2:28)

They don't care.

A (2:29)

Yeah, yeah.

B (2:31)

Abroad, that's it.

A (2:33)

Yeah.

B (2:35)

Now, I want you to take me back to the time when you were making that decision and what happened between you and your parents.

A (2:42)

Okay? My dad and my mom, they love me, you know, like, I don't think it is ever. Your parents don't ever love you. Like, when they bring you into the world, they love you. And so they love me. So because of that, they care for me and they care what my future looks like. And so if I come to them and say something as scary as I don't want to go to university, which is the path that everybody is going on, understandably, they were, they were concerned. And so because of that, there was a lot of back and forth to some extent. I wouldn't say they didn't support me, but we had a lot of conversations, a lot of difficult conversations about this matter. Sometimes, you know, like, of course, it is Africa. So it's not just my parents, it's the people around too. So you have people. I don't even think the thing is that my parents don't want me to do what I want to do. I think sometimes it's like what other people will say about, you know, I think that is the. That is actually the challenge. And so it was hard for them to understand, but I promised them that, you know, me, we've been in the house for 18 years, you know, that when I set my mind to something, I'm going to do it. And one thing that my dad told me a year after this is that when I said it and I came back from, immediately I came back from school, he saw me studying, he saw me like, I'm finished with shs. A week later, I was studying, trying to figure out how to create content and all these kind of things. And then when he saw me, that solidified it in his head that I'm going to do something, you know, he didn't know where it was going to lead to, but he believed that there's work going to be done. So there was friction. I wouldn't say there wasn't friction. There was friction. Family members, you know, family members. I don't want to go into, deep into it, but family members would talk. You would hear family members talking. You would hear people judging you for the decision that you. You took, even though they don't understand anything about your life.

B (4:31)

Do you think as Ghanaians, we tend to judge a Lot, A lot, A.

C (4:37)

Lot people, people like to give ideas or people like to give suggestions like they fully understand what is really going on, but they don't. They really don't. So that is something even happened with me because even my mom, when I completed shs that my dad bought me forms for UDS that I should go. I couldn't trust that man. And I couldn't trust that when I'm going to the school it there's going to be full support like that. But this woman wouldn't mind, wouldn't listen and like because my senior brothers have completed eds, I should, I should at least complete the university and then I can come and do whatever I want to do.

B (5:16)

Okay, so I heard those same words. Mind you, I'm in London. I bet you anything, any dollar, any city, any pound, if I had said I didn't want to go to university, I would have ended up back in.

A (5:27)

Ghana.

B (5:30)

I bet you. I mean, look, my father always said that, Derek, I know you love music and I know you love what you do, but finish university. Yeah, he always said it and at the end of that sentence would be, life is how you make it. And then I'm just thinking to myself, if life is how you make it.

A (5:49)

Then let me do it.

B (5:52)

But he won't listen, you know, even when simply by being abroad, as people saw it.

A (5:59)

Yeah.

B (5:59)

You know, you're a burger. He still wanted you to go to university right now. So much so that I know people and I had friends who only went to university, which is what I'm gonna get into. Only went to university because they wanted to graduate for their parents.

A (6:12)

Yes.

B (6:13)

Today they still don't have jobs.

A (6:14)

Yes.

B (6:14)

And some of them after 10 years is now that they are going back to university to study what they want to study. Yeah, to get a job.

C (6:21)

Yeah, that one is a, that, that, that, that is a huge problem we are having here because, okay, like parents deciding what they, their kids should do in a university. Even in sh, it starts from there because maybe the kid would want to do maybe arts or maybe want to do homocons or something. But then their parents are like, I want you to be a doctor, so go for the science. Yeah, the kid might be a brilliant student, but then the, the, the, the space you are putting them in, they are forcing. But then at the end of the day they don't find interest in what they're doing. So they are just chewing and pouring for their own sake for you, for you to be happy, to impress you. The same thing. So from The SHS now their path is being directed. They have to do a science course at the university too. So that is what is going to happen there. So by the time they're done, they'll be doing a course. They might not even find job in Ghana.

B (7:08)

I heard somewhere, okay. That in Ghana even the university can choose a course for some of the students.

A (7:15)

You'd be the best.

B (7:17)

Yeah.

C (7:17)

Because I think when I said when I as a. I like me being a science student, my courses were limited. But this is what, this is the problem we are talking about here because they lied to me.

A (7:29)

Oh.

C (7:29)

Science is a general course. You can do a lot of course you want to. But when I was selecting the courses in university, not every course that I could do. Why? I don't know. The system is programmed the way that if you're a science student you have.

B (7:40)

To do science related courses. Okay.

C (7:43)

But then before that they told me science students are like. We are like general arts. We could do anything. General could do what? Science. I. I didn't really understand like it wasn't making sense to me at that point.

B (7:53)

But then, but what I'm hearing is when they actually get to the university because the university just wants to fill up the courses, they push people into courses.

A (8:00)

I heard that too. Yeah, I heard that too.

B (8:02)

For that one.

C (8:03)

For that one. I can say for a second someone.

A (8:06)

Was speaking to me is like their thought processes at the end of the day, univers also a business and they need to make money. Right. And so because of that if I say I want to go and do marketing in the university, they won't just give me marketing pet to go and do.

C (8:19)

No.

A (8:19)

They would add all these other things that are unnecessary in our eyes and they will pro. They will say it is necessary, but in my eyes I know it is unnecessary. They'll give you all these things because they still have to make money to so to fill up the spaces and to fill up all these other things. But again I'm not an expert in it. But that's what. When I was. I was having a conversation with someone who is now working like they are grown and they are going back to uni, doing evening classes and we're seeing something like that, that it's a business. So all the other things need to be filled.

C (8:49)

Yeah. What I understand is you, if you, if you come into the University of Ghana or like person like University of Ghana is what I know. It's only I think in the first year that they add some unnecessary course that you have to do compulsory, but then I think after the first year, it's up to you to add it, because we do combine and measure, like single measure and then combine. So you can choose to add some causes to what you're already doing as your main, and you can choose to focus on what you're doing. So, in the University of Ghana, I think that one is your own choice. It's not the school that gives to you. I don't know about the others, though, but then the University of Ghana, think about it. Connected Minds Podcast.