BROOKINGS – Olivia Durowah will graduate Saturday from South Dakota State University with double master’s degrees in economics and data analysis. But as impressive as that is, what’s even more amazing is that she did it while on an incredible journey.

Durowah was born in a rural area of Ghana, on the West Coast of Africa, in a town of about 300 people. It was so remote there was no electricity at the time, she said.

She’s the fifth child in a family of eight – the rest are boys.

“I used to live with my immediate family and extended family (grandparents and cousins), all in one house,” Durowah said.

That changed after her parents divorced when she was 6 years old. Her grandmother took in Durowah and all her brothers.

“That was my paternal grandma; she felt that my dad was not doing what he was supposed to do, so she had to step in to do that,” Durowah said.

When she was 9, her grandmother moved the family to a city. That exposed Durowah to people who were well-to-do and sparked the idea of coming to America.

“Some of them traveled outside (Ghana) during vacation. After high school, they go abroad to study, so I just looked up to them. I saw myself also making it, but I didn’t know where it was gonna come from,” Durowah said.

In Ghana, families have to pay for the children to attend school. Finances were tight in Durowah’s family, so she and her brothers would take turns going to school, taking a whole year off in rotation. When it was Durowah’s turn to take off a year, she would keep up with her studies by sharing her brothers’ textbooks, in addition to working jobs.

She was inspired by her dreams.

“I actually wanted to be a medical doctor. When I watched movies and see lady doctors, that encouraged me to go into that. It didn’t happen,” she said quietly. “Doing medicine in Ghana is really expensive. Even if you have money, you must have a doctor in your family before you can do that.”

Durowah knew the finances weren’t there for that dream, but she forged ahead.

When she was 15, she started high school, where her favorite subject was science.

“After my first year actually, they look at your grades; if you have very good grades, they give you a government scholarship,” Durowah said.

She won a scholarship that paid for her tuition and other expenses.

Just as things were looking up, Durowah’s grandmother died.

She was 16 and admits she was scared that losing her grandmother would mean she and her brothers wouldn’t be able to finish school.

“At that time, my elder brother, he was the oldest, he had finished high school and he was working,” she said. “He stepped in to support us, even though he didn’t have much, but he did his best to help us.”

Mostly it was just the siblings going it alone, although occasionally they would talk to some family members.

“I had an uncle here (in the states). I think he stepped in once when I was about to go to college, so he helped pay part of my admission fees, but that was it, my brother had to do the rest,” Durowah said.

She finished high school and took another year off before starting college at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, where she earned a 3.8 grade-point average and graduated best in her class with an economics major.

Coming to America to further her education wasn’t so unusual.

“Everybody wants to come to America, not only America, but other developed nations, to study,” Durowah said. “The issue of coming here to study actually came in just when I was finishing college.”

A teaching assistant told Durowah that American college programs had a more practical nature.

“Back home, it’s all about theory,” Durowah said, adding she wanted to prove the theories.

She could choose from Ohio University, SDSU and a college in Manitoba, Canada. It was cold in Canada – “and that scared me” – but finances were a problem there, too. Durowah went to Ohio, but found the program not to her liking.

“I wanted to major in international economics,” she said, then noticed it had been switched “to more like development studies, so I had to transfer to SDSU after a semester.”

“I had friends here who told me about the nature of the program. It gives you like more research background” and that’s what she wanted, Durowah said.

Her undergraduate degree was in economics, so she decided to continue with that field for her masters.

“Back home, we have serious economic problems, so I’ve always wanted to be in a position where I can help my country to overcome these challenges. That was my main aim of doing economics,” Durowah said.

“Going into the program, I noticed that data was taking over, so I needed to do data analysis, too. (It) complements my economics background, so I enrolled in the data science program,” Durowah said.

Even though she has earned double master’s degrees, Durowah said she’s not done with education.

“I want to continue with my Ph.D. but for now, I’m thinking of working for a while and continue my Ph.D. after a year,” Durowah said.

She’s still looking for a job but wants to stay in the area.

“I’m applying for jobs around Sioux Falls,” she said.

Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.