Ok, so I think I've finally chosen my classes for this semester. I know, it's mid February and ordinarily I should have been certain about my classes a long time ago. However, it doesn't work that way here since the registration and course scheduling system is close to non existent.
Heres what happens, you look at the course handbook and select the courses you would like to take. Then you go to each department individually and are told that the courses you want to enroll in don't actually exist since the University of Ghana is too poor to print course handbooks more than once every few years (the current one is 4 years old). Now that you are discouraged, you reselect your courses from the list posted at each department.
Congratulations! After several days of walking around campus filling out forms for every department, since they all have their own unique registration process, you have a set of classes which you are satisfied with. Content with life, you relax for a week since none of the classes actually meet the first week.
Week two begins and after several days of rest, your optimism towards the educational system is restored... for three and a half minutes. After that amount of time in your first lecture you realize that half your professors have decided to change the time of lecture due to the fact that the afternoon is hot, they want to avoid morning rush hour traffic, or just because they hate tuesdays.
Back to the drawing board... you walk from department to department adding new classes which can fit into your newly thrashed schedule. Week two of classes comes to an end and a theoretically plausible schedule is in your possession at last. But will you like your classes?
Week three: time to test the waters of your new courses. Too bad your professors decided to take the day off, change lecture venue or cancel class. Some professors still aren't aware they have been assigned to lecture for your course yet. Oh well, maybe next week you'll find out if your classes are decent.
Week four: you have been to at least one lecture for every course and can predict a reasonable change of success. Now all thats left is dropping the extraneous classes on your schedule and you're done with registration. Congratulations! ... Oh yeah there is no guarantee that your final exam periods won't clash with each other resulting in an F for one class or the other. But exam schedules don't come out until April, so you can worry about it then.
So yeah, thats how it went.... I just registered for summer classes at UT this week . Took 2 minutes: click, click, click. Submit. Done.
Ok, so the classes I'm actually going to take here in Ghana are:
Society, Government and Politics of Ghana. The title pretty much describes that one.
Twi. The language spoken by most Ghanaians ... when they aren't speaking fluent english.
Physics of Materials. A senior level course in the Physics Department, it covers materials much like material science courses I've taken in the past but it also looks into optical and dielectric properties of materials.
Energy. Another senior level physics course. This course covers all types of energy production (Solar, Wind, Hydro, fossil fuels... etc). I actually really like this class despite the fact that the professor calls on me for nearly every question even though there are 50 other students in the room. I guess he likes playing the game of 'stump the American' since I'm the only non-Ghanaian in the class.
Strategies for Development in Africa. Yep, not gonna lie, I haven't actually gotten the opportunity to sit through a lecture for this yet due to late registration then subsequent class cancellations, but I have it on good authority that this is a decent class.
Please note that despite whatever tone I may have towards the registration process, I do, in fact, maintain a positive attitude towards The University of Ghana.
I don't have any travel plans this weekend so exciting pictures may not be on the near horizon but if you wait just a little bit, I'll be departing on a trip to the north and Mole NP one week from today. You know what that means? Yep... Elephants!
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