Professor Gordon Akanzuwine Awandare, the Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana (UG), has urged students to build resilience as a foundation for their future career.
The Pro-Vice Chancellor reiterated that resilience was one of the most important traits for success in life.
Prof Awandare gave the advice in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at the closing ceremony of the Pan-African Doctoral Academy (PADA) Mid-Year 2023 Doctoral Schools at the UG, Legon, Accra.
The PADA supports doctoral students and early-career faculty with training, mentoring, career guidance, and scholarship.
Its overarching goal is to increase the quality of PhD education in West Africa by providing complementary skills that are essential for the academic and career progression of doctoral students and new PhD holders.
The flagship programme of PADA is the Doctoral School, which offers targeted courses on specialised topics and also provides opportunities for interdisciplinary and cross-cultural learning.
The two-week programme brought together over 200 PhD students from across the African Continent.
Prof Awandare advised young people not to look for shortcuts in life and that success comes from hard work, dedication, commitment, and focus.
“If you are a young academic or a student, you have to learn to be independent and you have to build resilience, because as you grow and develop your career, you are going to encounter challenges, and you should not use challenges as an excuse to fail,” Prof Awandare said.
“You have to find ways to surmount those challenges and work towards achieving your vision for yourself”.
He also advised students not to feel sorry for themselves; stating that “in the face of challenges, you cannot feel helpless and say that this is a very good time to give up”.
He reiterated that resilience was necessary for young people to be successful.
“There is nobody who has been successful, who hasn’t had to face and overcome challenges; so, whenever they are facing challenges, you have to just see them as part of the process of being successful and part of the journey to higher heights,” he said.
Dr Jemima Anderson, Director, PADA-UG, lauded Prof Awandare for the huge way he supports the Doctoral Schools.
She noted that this year, for the first time, they had participants coming from Uganda and Senegal.
She urged the PhD students to be good ambassadors of PADA; adding that “all we are saying is that please when you go back (home) tell more people about the Pan-African Doctoral School at the University of Ghana”.
She said their next Doctoral School would be held between December 2023 and February 2024.
Professor Samuel Agyei-Mensah, Cohort Three Team Lead, Building a New Generation of Academics in Africa Project, UG, said the PhD journey was an overly complex process and that students must not overestimate a PhD Programme.
He noted that there was a difference between a project and PhD, hence, students must not overestimate what a PhD was.
Prof Agyei-Mensah said it was sad to note that when a student had a supervisor, who did not know what a PhD entailed, that student would be in trouble; saying “because right from the onset he or she should be able to guide you, so not getting a PhD also stems from the fact that you don’t have a supervisor who knows what a PhD entails and more importantly losing contact with your supervisor”.
“Once you lose contact with your supervisor you are finished. Yes, if you don’t consult your supervisor, you are done.”
He advised students to maintain good contact with their supervisors to enable them to finish their PhD thesis successfully.
Dr Collins Badu Agyemang, Doctoral School Coordinator, PADA-University of Ghana, appealed to the Management of UG to consider incorporating some of the models at the Doctoral School into the University’s Doctoral Programmes.