Celebrating excellence

University of Johannesburg’s graduate, Nqobile Gama recently created giant leaps in her academic career.

Gama is the first African student at UJ to graduate with Bcom Honours Sports Management Cum Laude.

“I feel happy and very proud, I was not aiming for a cum laude but just for excellence,” Gama said. “I also just wanted to stand out from the crowd, because when you stand out you achieve a lot,” she said. Gama highlighted that her main goal is to inspire the youth, and to uplift them, and she also added that she has always been an A student.

She attended Holy Family College in Parktown, from grades 2 to 12, and she was the school’s deputy head girl and achieved an Honours blazer.

The 23-year-old said she wants the youth to find passion and stick to it. “If you have an opportunity to study, make it happen.”

She also said that her love for sports started at an early age. “When I was still young, I played every single sport that you could think of,” she recalled.

She said Ghandi’s quote that reads, be the change you want to see in the world, has always inspired her. “We are the future leaders of South Africa and the change really begins with you,” she said.

Although she took Finance in her first year, Gama said she could immediately tell that Sports Management was more her thing.

“When you think about choices that people make when they leave school, they would rather think of studying Accounting, Law or Engineering, and that is the mistake that I made when I chose Finance but I immediately knew that I had to study what I love,” she said.

She also said the main reason she chose to study Sports Management, was her desire to develop women’s sports.

She is currently the marketing coordinator for UJ Sport and has applied to do her Master’s degree in 2016.