Ambassadorial Scholar in Ghana: July 2013

Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Electricity Is Such A Pain

Hey everyone!

As you probably know, last year I raised funds to build a computer lab with BFG-Ghana, my friend Kofi's NGO here. In a quickly evolving world where the main way to communicate is via technology, exposing communities to it is vital and gives them a chance to keep up with an ever changing global village. We are nearly done...but not quite.

We would like to have the lab open for the school next month - the only thing holding us back is getting electricity to the lab. It will cost $700 to set it all up.

We have currently exhausted all our funding due to changes in the prices of materials. That’s why we are asking for your support. No donation is too big or small. We would be happy with whatever you can give to help us. Please click on this link if you want to donate via PayPal. If not, please get in touch so we can set something up.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Sunday, 21 July 2013

What I Learnt Writing A Master's Dissertation

Unlike a term paper you cannot “punch out” a few pages (or a chapter) in a few hours or a day. This was a bit shocking for me because throughout my undergrad I consistently completed term papers of 10+ pages the evening before the paper was due. With my dissertation, I could sit at my desk for an entire day and type, delete, re-type and re-delete three sentences.

I have always wondered how people write books. It seems like so much WORK! This dissertation process has not cleared the subject for me. I wonder, even more, how people write books.

You should really like your dissertation topic. Don’t pick a topic that you’re a bit familiar with and assume it, therefore, will make the work simple. To me it seems that students with an interest in their topic have a much easier time writing a dissertation than those who picked a topic for the fact that it seemed “easy” but had zero interest in the subject. Writing a dissertation is a lot of work – a lot of reading literature, a lot of thinking, a lot of analyzing, and a lot of writing. This is all a lot easier if your subject is of some interest to you.

It’s likely that your coursework for your Master’s will have little to do with your dissertation topic. This can make the coursework seem like a big waste of time considering the dissertation is worth almost as much as the classes. Try not to think like this. Strangely, the classes probably weren’t a waste of time (okay, its possible 1 or 2 were).