Angela: Now, what was your course of study while you were at the university?

Amma:  It was just general African studies. I took courses in Twi, which is the native language there. I guess the colonized language is English of course, but most of the Akan tribe speaks Twi. Then there are other different dialects that you speak, based on wherever you come from.

I took a dance class, a music class. I was playing at the time. I had been playing the flute for about 10 years, solo flute, so I was taking flute while I was there. I just figured, "Why, not? It was simple." History of Africa and the Diaspora, and there was one more class, Society, Government and Politics in Africa in Ghana. So that was just my general course layout.

Oh, and I took a geography course, the History of Geographic Thought. It was the worse course. I seriously thought it was just going to be a regular geography course. It was the History of Geographic Thought. It was like a philosophy course, it was so boring!

Angela: How would you compare the educations systems that you encountered in Ghana with what you've encountered in the United States at the college level?

Amma: At the college level, the Ghanaian educational system is based off of the British educational system because they were colonized by the British. From my understanding from my aunt, who also attended the university, who graduated from there, she was telling me how it was based off of Oxford University.

They had to wear robes and things to classrooms, very traditional. They still had the same lecture hall setup and you get tested once throughout the year and that was pretty much it.

That was very intense, well, it became very intense towards the end of the semester when we're realizing: "Wow, we really have to take exams!" But throughout the semester we were just like "Hey we're in Ghana, we're going to go to the beach" [laughter] and just have fun, but I can imagine for students that actually attended school there, like my cousins were stressed out.

I'm stressed out where I was at undergraduate school, but I had more than one test to take, so if you failed a course, you failed it and that was it.

There were a number of other issues that the students there had to deal with that weren't such a big deal here as far as money, housing, there were dormitories, but there were not enough dormitories for the amount of students that they had coming in. You have students all over Africa coming to Ghana to be schooled there, so it was very interesting.

We had a number of infrastructure issues: the water would go out, the lights would go out. If there was a rain storm the whole campus would shut down because the drainage wasn't up﷓to﷓date and there was flash flooding. So, that, in itself, was interesting to deal with, but it made it fun.

Angela:  What were some of the advantages to you of staying abroad?

Amma:  Just being immersed in another culture even though I was familiar with Ghanaian culture, it's another thing to have grown up with a parent that's from the country then to go there and be involved with it, you're so ﷓
It's a culture shock but it was interesting because I build relationships with so many people from around the world and I was able to learn so much just from these different people more so than anything I learned in class.

So I think that this goes with college in general, the exposure to different people and different cultures and being abroad just intensifies that because you're there, you're in it, you really can't go home. You can but it's not advised and it was just ﷓ it was just wonderful.

It forced me to learn my mother tongue, well father tongue in this case.

It just ﷓ it just forced me to embrace so many different things about myself, my background and really look within myself like, you're there basically alone even with your family and its like you have people that you depend on, you build these bonds like, some of the girls I spend time with, they were like sisters to me now.

So, even for that short period of time you become dependent on another person because everybody's dealing with home sickness or getting used to food and adjusting to the culture and that in itself just build you up as a person builds character so, I really appreciate about staying abroad.

Click here to hear more about Amma's study abroad adventures in Ghana.