Samuel Danquah

Reminiscing an unforgettable moment from my childhood years, I felt my body quake from the back seat of daddy’s sedan, as he drove over a colossal pothole that at first glance looked like a mirage. Despite the unpleasant experience, it became the kindle that sparked my curiosity and aspiration to emerge as an influential leader in the field of transportation engineering. Replete with cavernous pits and potholes, the highway leading to our home has caused severe damages to many cars that ply its route. Furthermore, the situation gets worse during torrential rains. In all this prosaic backdrop, I have never stopped asking why can we do something about this? Having the opportunity to pursue a degree in civil engineering as a freshman at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology was an exciting milestone that brought me one step closer to my dreams. While this landmark assured me that I am still striding on my goals along the pathways of civil engineering to emerge among the top tier, it is meaningless if I cannot channel its impact to serve my community and generation. Therefore, my objectives in college were lucid and crystal clear – to emerge as a top-notch professional in civil engineering to serve my community and world at large. My college experience in civil engineering exposed me to manifold fields spanning from Structural Engineering, Highway and Transportation Engineering, Systems Engineering, Water Resources and Drainage, and Environmental Engineering. However, I realized that transportation engineering was the wormhole with a fulfilling career pathway to living my dreams. Although I enjoyed my transportation engineering classes in college, my internship experiences really confirmed my interest in this field. My first opportunity came when I worked as an intern at the Department of Urban Roads, a government municipal assembly. I gained exposure in chaining a road, conducting road inventory and line diagram data representation, patching potholes, constructing drains and roads among others. I sought more opportunities to harness my potential for this field. I progressed to the regional office of the Ghana Highway Authority. The experience that I obtained was very illuminating. In addition, I gained new perspectives to address the questions and challenges I had pondered over as a child. These included road maintenance of highways in Ghana, road defects on bituminous pavements, road inspection for monitoring and evaluation, cube crushing test for construction concrete strength determination among other tests as well as contract document creation. Coupling my complementing internship experiences with my academic work, I graduated with a First Class in BSc Civil Engineering. The desire to pursue a graduate program in Transportation Engineering at this stage is to enable me further investigate and contribute to the understanding of the various physical phenomena encountered in Civil Engineering, which would lead to more accurate assessment and use of the engineering characteristics and potentials of materials, sites, and processes. Furthering my education in this course would introduce me to new technologies utilized in defining these concepts. I strongly believe that graduate school is an opportunity to improve my Professional’s bank of knowledge. The University environment is always a place to meet and interact with other individuals from different cultural backgrounds. This interaction would aid me to learn from other civil engineers and this would further broaden my knowledge of engineering practices as well as integrate cultural practices from diverse perspectives and personalities. After completion of a Master’s of Science degree, I would like to pursue a career as a consultant and establish a consultancy firm that will be involved in both the design and construction of massive road networks to address transportation problems. In addition to gaining professional experience in the consulting world, I will have the essential skills to return to school to further my education with a Doctoral degree. This will enable me to contribute back to academia as a part-time lecturer and impact the next generation of civil engineers while providing them with internship opportunities in my firm to constantly develop their potential for the future world of work. From the story of the outliers by Malcolm Gladwell; “The Matthew Effect and the three lessons from Joe Flom” have greatly impacted my life - making the best out of every chance I am presented with is a theme I apply myself to. I strongly believe the very events that have characterized my undergraduate study are a stepping stone and a guarantee that I am cut out to face every scenario with a level head and come out the very best when given a graduate school chance in your august Institution. I believe the program offered will help me acquire the versatility needed to reach my full potential as a Civil Engineer.