Im working on some code to read and parse my JSON and for some unknown reason the parsed data is unable to be accessed outside of the function. My first console log will return my JSON data but the last one will not.

Is there any way to make the JSON data accessible from anywhere in the script?

JavaScript:

const fs = require("fs/promises");

...

let continueCourses;
const getCurrentCourses = async () => {
    try {
        await fs.access("./data/user-courses.json");
    } catch {
        continueCourses = { courses: [] };
    }

    if (!continueCourses) {
        continueCourses = JSON.parse(await fs.readFile("./data/user-courses.json", "utf8"));
        console.log(continueCourses);
    }
};

getCurrentCourses()
console.log(continueCourses)

JSON:

{
    "courses": [
        {
            "id": "0",
            "title": "Getting Started with Hirigana",
            "desc": "Intro"
        },
        {
            "id": "1",
            "title": "Getting Started with Katakana",
            "desc": "Intro"
        }
    ]
}