Of the over 30,000 undergraduate students within NYU’s Global Network, only 13 chose to study away in Ghana this fall. The reasons for Accra’s unpopularity in the global network are multifaceted. A partial excuse is the course credit constraints of certain majors and concentrations, yet there is an undeniable prejudice at play as well.

The question of “why Accra” is revealingly more common than “why New York” or “why London,” as though the legitimacy of Ghana as a study away site requires explanation. An unfortunate contributor to that assumption is the rumor that there is nothing to do in Ghana, which is even perpetuated by those who have studied in Accra themselves.

But please don’t let that be your takeaway.

The issue is, in fact, a matter of interpretation: we read our surroundings in accordance to our upbringing, and look for signs of opportunity. Coming from different backgrounds, however, our usual reading of our surroundings might yield little in the way of “things to do”.

Perhaps we, NYU students, are stuck in an epidemic of forgetting to look beyond our comfort zones. We blame the place instead of ourselves.

The fact is NYU Accra curates an experience not that different from NYU Abu Dhabi. From organizing overnight trips across multiple regions, ensuring we have access to gym memberships and catered restaurant dinners every weeknight, it almost seems that the notion of not having much to do stems from how easy it is to wallow in the quiet suburban neighbourhood.

But it is not that opportunities aren’t there. It is simply that they aren’t written as we expect them to be.

Image Courtesy of the Authors

For fall break, we wanted to keep things affordable by traveling via bus. Through a series of uninteresting embassy struggles, we missed the bus we had planned to take. Unsure of what to do, we made what at the time felt like a bold decision to set out in a general westward direction, in the hope that we would find continuous transit to Abidjan, the capital of Côte d'Ivoire. The internet was of little help, except for the insight that a single highway, N1, stretched laterally across Ghana just North of the coast, with a generous sprinkling of affordable accommodation along the way.

This was the first leg of our journey in which we learned that information lives in the people around us, and not on the internet. Had we adhered to our preconceived notion of information being made true by its written form, we would have been disappointed that no such written travel route awaited us online. But by asking a series of people, we patched together a string of buses and shared cabs from Accra to Takoradi, to Alabokazo Junction, to Beyin, to Tikobo 1 and finally, to Elebo, the border to Côte d'Ivoire. Needless to say, Ghana has an extensive transport network, but we wouldn’t have known had we not asked.

Our initial plan would have meant missing all these stops, which ended up being the most memorable part of the journey. We decided to break up the trip by staying in a quaint but beautiful beach lodge. It was here that we witnessed a sea turtle laying eggs and were were able to paddle out in the early morning hours to catch a glimpse of Nzulezo: a famous village on stilts.

Our detour also provided us with new perspectives. In Beyin, a small coastal town, we learned that the US was drilling oil offshore, of which Ghana only got a fraction of the profits and which disrupted the town’s fishing industry. Somewhere, I’m sure, these truths are written but it certainly wasn’t circulated to us in the West.

We came to find, in a broadly applicable sense, that truth lives elsewhere than we had imagined, and that a deeper understanding requires deeper inquiry. In no sense is Ghana lacking in experiences, yet NYU students seem to recognize opportunity primarily in the blinding lights of Times Square or the London Eye. There is limitless potential in any location, but the task of extracting it lies on you.

Coming from the U.S. and Australia, having to rely on the general openness and helpfulness of strangers to find our way was novel and exciting. To some of you reading, however, this may simply sound like home. Regardless of your background, however, the most valuable aspect of studying away is the opportunity to reorient yourself to a new urban network of strangers. Do you shy away from people who approach you, or do you take them up on their friendly offers? Whatever framework that previously shaped your personal values, study away is the time to put them to the test.

We found that, in Ghana, navigating daily life requires a higher degree of interpersonal interaction. Information is carried in the minds of passersby, and not written on the web where we initially searched. Google, for the first time in our lives, fell short, but in its place was an experience even more worth exploring.