One of the nurses here at the clinic is attempting to get
Master’s degree through the internet. The university she is using is based somewhere
in India, despite the fact that it has the word “Americana” in the title. For
the first few months she was enrolled in the course,
she would come to me frustrated and seeking help on how to download her assignments and
modules from the clinic computer with internet (and also with a ton of viruses). It's a whole lot of school work that she had to do each week on top of working full-time at the clinic. If
she falls behind, she 's pretty much done.
Unfortunately, on her personal computer she didn’t have any
Microsoft Office products, and none of the files were opening
despite my attempts to download other off-brand typing programs and PDF
readers. We eventually found a way around this by converting the assignments to PDFs and transferring them on a CD to her computer, but every few weeks she has to
be connected to reliable internet to take an exam. That means she spends her own
money to go to Maun (a 6-7 hour bus ride away) to use an internet café with
ridiculously slow internet to take an exam at a very specific and uninterrupted time. And sometimes the cafes are inexplicably closed or the internet isn't working.
A few weeks ago, she ended up having to purchase her own internet data to use on a dongle (like a USB personal hot spot using the cell phone network). I know for a fact that purchasing enough data to use for a few hours of test writing is anything but cheap. I’ve
watched and listened to her struggle and persevere in ways that I don’t know that I would have the strength to do. The barriers she has to overcome to further her education are large and discouraging. She still has several months left in her program (maybe over a year?), but at least she knows I'm rooting for her.
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