MY MOST DIFFICULT MOMENT

…choosing between joining the army, journalism
Charles Takyi-Boadu
Posted:Thursday, August 14, 2008
Life presents several opportunities, but the choice of making the right decision has always been a problem for man. This is the very situation in which I found myself after completing secondary education in the year 1999. I was thorn between the decision of joining the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) and pursuing a career in journalism, a profession that has severally been described as ‘noble’.
It took me almost two years to finally weigh the options at my disposal since I had a difficult time trying to decipher the wisdom in the advice of my parents and my personal instincts.
Considering the fact that I did not qualify for the university, my father had given indications of his preparedness to sponsor my education only if heeded to his advice and pursue a course at the polytechnic since it was the easiest way by which I could secure a job.
Apart from the polytechnic, the ‘old boy’ was not prepared to do anything else, let alone talk about journalism.
Though I fairly understood him, taking into consideration, the fact that his earnings was nothing worth writing home about and the fact that he had to equally take care of my other siblings; I defied his advice and went for the broke.
Determined as I was to pursue journalism, I was compelled by prevailing circumstances at the time to start trading in wears.
At a point, I realised most of my colleagues, with whom I completed school were all moving on, so I opted to pursue a course in journalism.
After a short while, I went into discussions with my mother, who bought into the idea of pursuing journalism. However, this, offer came with a conditional clause since ‘there is no free lunch anywhere’.
I was made to pledge that I was going to take my studies serious and stay away from bad company and the influences of peer pressure.
Under the circumstance, I was left with little or virtually no option than to promise to be of good behaviour and take my studies serious.
All this while, I was contemplating whether or not I will be admitted to the traditional journalism training institute, the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), considering the number of applications received each year.
I thus opted to purchase an admission form at one of the few private institutions which was producing equally good journalists, Manifold Tutorial College (MTC).
Lo and behold, I was offered admission to pursue journalism, with the option of public relations.
Matters got worse, after my first semester, when my father was transferred from the national capital, Accra to Kumasi in the Ashanti region.
Though my father now offered to pay my fees upon seeing the potential in me and thus ask me to obtain a transfer to a sister school in the region, I declined. He thus left me to my fate.
I however became stranded in life when my senior sister who was by then in Israel and thought could help me pay my fees failed to assist me.
Left without an option, I obtained a transfer from management of school and packed bag and baggage’s to continue the school at the Institute of Business Management and Journalism (IBM & J).
I took just a day for me to change my decision to start the new school as a continuing student after realising from the first lecture that all I learnt at my former school was junk.
I started all over again as a fresher.
My first week on campus was just like been to hell and back since each and every one of the students who set eyes on me had something to say about my stature.
I did not only become the centre of attraction but virtually became a laughing stock. Whilst some of the students described me as a boxer, others said I was wrestler.
Some even went to the extent of asking me to quit journalism to pursue a career in boxing, calling me ‘macho journalist’.
In fact, ‘macho journalist’ became my name until the saying that ‘to everything, there is season’ became evident in my life when my passion for students politics made me contest and won the positions of Vice President of both the Students Representative Council (SRC) and the Association of Student Journalists (ASJ) in the school.
I thus propounded a theory for myself, that ‘there is no option to life but there are several options in life’.