The day the UEW admission portal updated, Kingstar sat in a small internet café near Bohyen Junction, refreshing the page every few seconds. His heart thudded loudly in his chest.
And then boom!
His name appeared.
"Offered Admission: B.Ed. Basic Education (Mathematics) – UEW Main Campus."
He blinked.
Read it again.
Again.
Where was the "ICT"?
He called the café attendant over.
"Boss, please… this course no be pure Mathematics and ICT?"
The guy chuckled and said, "Chale, you choose Basic Education instead of Mathematics (Science) or ICT. E be application error. But at least you get admission."
Kingstar sank into the plastic chair.
He had made a mistake.
He'd accidentally selected B.Ed. Basic Education (Mathematics) instead of B.Sc. Mathematics or ICT.
A tiny tick in the wrong box, and now he was going to be trained as a basic school teacher not a computer scientist or mathematician, at least not in the way he had dreamed.
But still…
He had made it. He was going to the university.
He stared at the screen.
It wasn't exactly the course he wanted but maybe, just maybe, this was part of the journey too.
And as his mother always said, "Nyame nnim s3nea ne nkwan b3yɛ dɛ." (God knows how to make even soup sweet with little ingredients.)
He paid for the admission letter printout.
On his way home, he held the envelope tightly against his chest.
He was officially a UEW student.
The dream had begun just not in the way he expected.