From Jobless and Freelancing, To A Masters Degree And A Start Up Company

A long journey ends and another chapter begins

On Friday, 28th July, 2017, I officially graduated from the Ghana Institute Of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) with a Masters of Science in Management Information Systems.

It’s been long two years but the feeling of accomplishment should be more that I feel right now. But here’s the journey I’ve been on. It’s been full of frustration, depression, long nights of no sleep, hard work, procrastination, and feelings of inadequacy. But like most journeys, there’s always an ending.

Frustration, Cash Strapped and Freelancing

I was slowly getting burnt out from my job as an IT security auditor in the early months of 2015. I had been at the job two years but I was slowly losing motivation to keep going. It seemed that IT security just wasn’t right for me. It had become redundant. I wanted out as soon as possible.

That same year, I officially applied for a Masters program at GIMPA after looking at different school options, which included schools from outside the country. Ultimately I choose GIMPA.

Funny enough, I had deferred the previous year because I thought my IT security work situation would improve. But it did not and so I decided I couldn’t wait any more further and so I moved on.


I started out as a graduate student in September 2015 at GIMPA, ready to make a long two year journey to obtaining a Masters degree of Science in Management Information Systems.

But I didn’t not have a job. My bank account was low on funds and I needed to support myself in whatever way I could. Although I had experience in IT security auditing and had done several big projects including some with the Ghana Government, not a lot of companies were looking IT security personnel. But truth be told, I felt like my days of working in a 9–5 office were beyond me. I couldn’t do it anymore. It wasn’t good for my mental health.

So I took to freelancing. Specifically, I was freelancing as a web designer/developer. My web development skills were rusty but I was pretty good at designing user interfaces and pushing out the HTML and CSS code with a bit of javascript for animation. It took a while but I was lucky to get some gigs doing basic websites for people which helped to bring in some money. I was OK for now.

User Experience Designing, Frustration/Depression And A New Startup Company

I finished one semester at GIMPA and the little money I was making from freelancing helped keep me balanced but it basically hand to mouth.

It didn’t take long for me to start to get into user experience field. I was looking to improve my designs and I eventually stumbled into that field. So the next few months, I balanced my school life while learning about the User Experience field and freelancing as a web designer.

Sometimes jobs were hard to find. Some days I barely had money in my wallet. Everything was frustrating. I don’t know how I was able to even get through that following semester. I was actually depressed. If you’re ever read my past blog posts, you would know that I had depressive episodes because I’m battling clinical depression. With no job, sporadic income and internal pressures to excel in school, my mental state was fragile.

I had been asking around about job openings but it seemed most companies were hiring programming and business analysts. Sometimes I think it was my stubbornness which prevented from wanting to get a 9–5 job.

But it was later that year where I met up with my old co-worker. He told me that he and his friend were working on starting a User Experience start up lab and he wanted to know if I wanted to join the team. It felt like a new challenge and the opportunities looked fruitful and so I hopped on board.

We registered the company later than year and started putting things in place. Userhub Africa was officially in business.

Start Up Life, UXPA, My Tech Blog And Racing Towards The Finish Line

The whole point of Userhub Africa is to get clients who work on products, especially digital products like websites and mobile apps, to involve the end user in their design process. A good user experience for a product is sometimes key to retaining and engaging customers which can actually help with getting a good return on your investments.

We started off slow. We didn’t want to bite off more than we could chew. But we were making some major moves in the background. Late last year, we started work on trying to establish a User Experience Professional Association (UXPA) Chapter in Ghana. One of the things we realized was that even though there are some UX people in Ghana, there doesn’t seem to be much push for UX designing in businesses and corporations in Ghana. We felt that forming a chapter and trying to get UX professions involved would be good idea.

We started the paperwork, sent out some emails and got people in the user experience designer field involved. In February of this year (2017), we received official confirmation that we were an official chapter. UXPA Ghana is official.


But in my personal life, the Masters program was draining me. As a matter of fact, I wanted to quit before my second year started. I was one year in and I was tired of “school”. I wanted to focus more on the new startup and I wanted to work on freelancing to bring in more money to keep myself “sane”.

Going into the final year, I was contemplating putting my Masters on hold. My research project was in its earliest form and I figured I could defer and come back the next year. I was scrapping the bottom of the barrel for the smallest motivation I could find. Honestly, I felt like only support I was getting through this ordeal was from my parents.

We don’t even discuss “friends” in this. “Friends” were non-existent.

But I decided that I had come too far to stop now. So decided to keep going. I was almost at the finish line.


I don’t know how it happened but before I knew it, I was writing tech articles alongside my research project for school. I started TechNovaGh.com in late March 2017. I had been a little bit of blogging the past year, trying to keep my writing skills up. After a year, I decided to launch a full website about exploring technology in Ghana.

I was thinking about launching it down the line and waiting for a better opportunity. But that didn’t feel right. In my gut, I felt like the time was now.

It’s been only three months since I launched TechNova but the feedback has been great so far. Honestly, I feel like there’s something special here….


So with the UXPA chapter started, Userhub Africa rolling, launching TechNovaGH and getting deeper into Masters research project, I had a full plate.

Research Work, Startup Progression and Graduation

Research is hard! Trying to get my project work off the ground was harder than I imagined.

During the process, it was actually revealing about the nature of research in Ghana. I needed data from people about their experiences with interacting electronically with a government institution but most respondents either didn’t care or were too busy to help out with surveys. I actually had to tweak my research scope because the initial data coming in wasn’t substantive enough.

Userhub Africa was still in the background and my partners were giving me space to finish up with school. TechNovaGh was doing OK. Whenever I had free time, I would push out at article or two. Sometimes it became an obsession to try to get the website right and push relevant stories to the reading audience. Sometimes I think I gave more attention to the website than to my research project. I won’t lie. There was some procrastination involved with my research project but in the back of my mind, I had it all under control.


In late April, 2017, I turned in my research paper for submission. The next month, I wrote my final exams. After that it was a waiting game to see what the results were.

It was all felt relief after the submissions. I was exhausted. The last couple of months had been draining but it was over. All I hoped for was to pass my exams and be done with everything.

Graduation

On July 28, 2017, I officially graduated from GIMPA with my Masters of Science degree in Management Information Systems.

Looking back, I should be more proud of how far I’ve come.

The creation of Userhub Africa is a big deal. We’re working on creating an actual user experience lab to help deliver the best experience for websites and mobile applications as well as conducting user research. We’re currently working on our first big project which has to do with themes of digital music. After that, we hope to go full steam ahead with more marketing to enhance our visibility.

With the establishment of one of the first UXPA Chapters in Africa, we will also be working to bring the awareness of User Experience (UX) to more people and businesses.

TechNovaGh is doing pretty good. It’s been only three full months since I launched but traffic to the site is steadily increasing and it has been slowly getting recognition for the content that is being put out.

So now what’s the next step!

Honestly? Probably rest. LOTS of rest.

I’m drained folks. I’m tired. I feel like my body is in need of a reboot. I’ve been working too much. Actually been pushing myself to the limit.

But I’m happy I’ve come this far. I’m happy some of the work I’ve put in has paid off. I’m glad that even though that I don’t have that much of a social circle, my family is the best thing I can to support. And that’s the most important thing that matters.

And now I can say I’m a Masters graduate. That’s not bad.

Joseph-Albert Kuuire

Written by

My personal writing space. (UX Designer | Blogger | Social Introvert) UX Design writing: https://medium.com/ghuxdesign

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