"I want to be just like you.You are from uptown, aren't you?" the young man asked in the local slang with a broad smile unaware of the burning tropical sun.Selling bags of potatoes at the roadside, his extra-large T shirt and faded blue jeans were a proof to the universal influence of American pop culture in Africa.I had accepted a seat at his potato stand to take a break before concluding business in Accra that afternoon.Between busy sales serving customers stuck in traffic, he asked numerous questions about life in America, convinced that having a visa to the United States was like winning the lottery  .How could I tell him that I envied his simple life and childish innocence when I was guilty of the silent culture that has helped to create a false image of Africans living abroad? Outwardly, I looked like the poster boy for success visiting from the United States.My white designer shirt and matching pants were straight from the shopping malls in Detroit, where I worked as an engineer.Inwardly, I was caught in a web of ambition and cultural disappointment.My clothes suggested wealthy, yet I could not afford the numerous requests for money or to make gifts of my belongings.Uncles and aunties who were prepared to mortgage   their homes to help me leave 10 years ago now expected me to finance cousins hoping to make the same move to the United States. America had helped me achieve my ambition for furthering my education and professional experience.I had arrived with a high-school diploma, and after 10 years, I hold a graduate degree and have a relatively successful professional career.Every inch of progress, however, had been achieved through exhausting battles.My college education had been financed partly through working multiple minimum-wage jobs.I was fortunate to secure a job upon graduation, but adjusting to corporate culture made me pay another high price.Initially, I found myself putting in twice the effort just to keep up.Scared by a wave of layoffs, I went to graduate school part time because it was the only way I knew that afforded me an edge in job security.It was as though I had run 10 continuous marathons, one for each year abroad, and my body screamed for rest. The author managed to attend a graduate school because   _  .
studying graduate courses helped him adapt well to the life in the company a graduate degree was the minimum requirement for his career a graduate degree would give him an advantage over others in the job market he wanted to settle permanently in the U.S