Uganda – University of Makerere Women & Gender Studies Department
Andrew Owor
Electrical Engineering Student and Computer Networking Consultant
Like most people the unknown to me is mystery, the less we know about something the more we are afraid of it. I grew up in Uganda at a time when computers were more of an expensive luxury, a mysterious box that could perform so many functions. I was not accustomed to the concept of a computer being an essential tool for communication like the English alphabet. Even at 24 years of age I am still over-powered by my childhood desire to take things apart and find out what makes them tick. Whilst studying for my undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering at Makerere University, Kampala I enrolled in the Cisco Networking Academy Program for the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) course. To be totally honest, I was not very hopeful that my curiosity for computers and networking would be satisfied.
When I joined the Academy I was particularly attracted by the idea of doing exams electronically because, just a few months earlier, I had dislocated one of my right-hand wrist bones during a rugby game. For six months prior to my joining the course, I lost all functionality of my right hand. I was keen on learning but could not write, so this Cisco course was the light at the end of a dark tunnel. I had been exposed to some elementary computer skills prior to this and I had even visited an IT networking firm as part of my personal effort to known more about computers and networking. It was during this time that I discovered my great interest in computer networking.
The CCNA course turned out to be the missing link between me and the knowledge I had been seeking on computers and computer networking. The first few days in the course fueled my desire to get to know all there was to know in the course. As I read through the curriculum notes, illustrations, and the lab, the computer and all its components were demystified. Although my right hand was physically impaired, I loved the fact that the course was a hands-on kind of course where we the students actually get to see the equipment, configure them, sometimes fail but are corrected by the instructors. Equally important to me was the way the classes were conducted; we had fun filled discussions, which led me to understand the subject matter better.
The course covered all the aspects of computers and networking in a way that encouraged me to go on with the course, keeping me on the edge of my seat and anxious to get to the next page. The highlighted points were easy to pick out of the text, making the reading enjoyable and easy to follow. As I went through the course I was not conscience of the amount of knowledge I was actually acquiring, but at the end I realized that I have acquired a lot of knowledge about computers, design, configuration, installation, management, maintenance and troubleshooting.
Having acquired this knowledge it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to imagine what my perception of computer networks was before signing up for the Cisco Academy course. This experience made me realize the benefits of networking computers and widened my perception of computer networks. I have gained a lot of confidence in my networking skills; I have increased my experience from dealing only with hubs and small LANs to routers and switches for big corporate LANs. The course has increased my thirst for knowledge in this field and I will not stop at this level, I will go further until I become a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE). Even with my physical disability in my right-hand I was able to enjoy the course and gain a lot from it, and some of my classmates never even realized that I had this problem!
It is my mission to enhance education in African communities, starting with my home country in Uganda. I want to reach out to communities through electronic means and give them hope that even with a physical disability it is still their right to be educated.