Local graduate honour her late father
“I was quite shy, but being involved in student leadership created an avenue to meet new people.”
Nqobile Mtolo (23) from Moroka has recently celebrated her academic achievement and graduated at Stellenbosch University in honour of her late father, Sandile Mtolo.
Nqobile who previously promised her father to enroll with the university kept her promise after receiving a letter of acceptance from the university shortly after the passing of her father in 2018.
She graduated with a postgraduate diploma in marketing.
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“It has always been my father’s dream to see me graduate with the university since he regarded it as one of the best institutions in the country. It warms my heart seeing that I was able to keep the promise and reach this milestone in the midst of all the challenges I have encountered along the way,” Nqobile said.
Nqobile who was raised by her grandparents after the passing of her mother has always been determined to follow her own path, encouraged by her late mother’s resilience and strength.
“My mother played an important role in the person that I am today. My first six months in campus were extremely difficult since they were after the death of my father and I had no friends to rely on. I had to adjust to the new environment and being alone and away from my family.”
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She added that by June she was ready to pack her bags and applied for transfer to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), fortunately, the transfer never came through, as things changed significantly during the second half of that year.
While waiting for word from Wits, she decided to give Stellenbosch another try and became involved in student leadership and found her voice for others, as well as for herself.
“I was quite shy, but being involved in student leadership created an avenue to meet new people.”
She now describes her time at Stellenbosch as a positive experience and attributes her newfound confidence to the challenges which forced her to stand up for herself.
“As a student leader, I found myself speaking for other people like me – students who maybe had no parents or who had come to Stellenbosch from townships.”
Nqobile withdrew her transfer application to Wits and became the first grandchild in the family to graduate and seeing the pride on her family’s faces made her journey to the podium even more worthwhile.
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“I spoke to family who are involved in marketing and realised that there are so many opportunities in marketing. The first day of the course was very overwhelming.”
She has her eye on a job in digital marketing, either in Cape Town or Johannesburg, where she can apply what she has learnt at SU.
Nqobile’s advice to those considering studying far from home or outside of their comfort zone is to hang on and not to let challenges determine what their future will look like.
