The University of Ghana has conferred degrees on 341 students from the Colleges of Health Sciences and Education with a call on graduates to keep a global mindset in order to remain competitive.

Mrs Mansa Nettey, the Chief Executive Officer of the Standard Chartered Bank, Ghana who made the call told the graduates to be abreast with the changing trends in the world, which had become a global village.

She said, “It is incumbent on us to know the current trends and their implications for our contribution and progression, because we live and work in the global space in a global era”.

She urged the graduates to use their free periods to step back and figure out who they really were, and what impact they wanted to have made. She said, “dig deep into your life and your values… Life can happen and may happen but your ability to draw your inner values will make you a real difference.”

Mrs Nettey told graduates to find time, ‘put your phones away, step away from social media and spend some time thinking, reflecting, and discovering ‘the self’ in them.’

She urged the graduates to invest in themselves for future opportunities saying that life abounded with so many opportunities and that it behoved on every individual to attain the necessary requirements to help capitalise on the opportunities.

She said, there was the need to look out for the skills that would be relevant in the future and seek to prepare for them.

“Take full advantage of online programmes and gain knowledge and skills needed for progression in your career and the delivery of high quality service to your clients and humanity in general,” she said.

She said life had no entitlements, graduates should not enter the real world with their degrees, holding unreasonably high expectations about what they were entitled to, adding that in real life, everything was earned and that nothing would be given out on a silver platter.

Mrs Nettey indicated that life was not a sprint but a marathon saying, “Whereas sprinters run at top speed to reach their finish line, running a marathon requires discipline, perseverance, endurance and training to complete the given task over a long period of time”.

She asked the graduates to keep a positive attitude to succeed, adding that there was the need to eschew indiscipline, laziness, selfishness and perform with maximum effort and skills and admonished to treat every job they landed after graduation as theirs, by forging healthy relationships with supervisors, colleagues and clients.

Professor Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, the Vice Chancellor said, this year, a total of 3,184 students would be graduating at various levels from the University’s four colleges, thus, Colleges of Health Sciences, Humanities, Education, and Basic and Applied Sciences.

He noted that the University’s admission process reflected the diverse nature of student population saying, during the 2017/2018 admission cycle, a total of 14,128 students, made up of 11,707 undergraduates and 2,421 graduate students accepted offers and enrolled in various programmes run on various campuses.

He noted that the University awarded scholarship to a total of 614 students out of 920 applicants representing 66.7 per cent adding that “the 614 scholarship awardees comprised 424 males representing 69.1 per cent and 190 females representing 30.9 per cent.

Mr Marvin Ofosu-Boateng, who graduated with Final Grade Point Average of 3.68 in Pharmacy delivering the valedictory address commended parents, lecturers and all stakeholders who invested in their academic pursuit.

He said they had no doubt that the University had equipped them with the necessary tools to solve societal problems adding that, “wherever we find ourselves, I urge us to tackle challenges, achieve greater heights and impact a positive change in our dear motherland, Ghana”.