As a first generation university student who had never imagined herself completing her studies at a prestigious institution like Stellenbosch University (SU), 25-year-old Kuhle Ndyondya says achieving her graduation dreams has propelled her to dream even bigger.
“I would never have thought in a million years that I would make it into an undergraduate programme, let alone plan or be motivated to continue with a post graduate degree. The growth that comes with being at Stellenbosch is amazing."
Ndyondya
graduated with a BSc Agricultural Economics with Animal Science degree on
Monday 29 March 2021 during an online ceremony of SU’s Faculty of AgriSciences. She is a former Science and Mathematics at Stellenbosch University (SciMathUS) programme student and says that the SU programme helped to “kick start" her studies and “polished her interpersonal and communication skills" which helped her to work harder and with everyone and anyone from all walks of life.
“After being told that I wasn't the university type back when I was applying at tertiary institutions at the age of 17, SciMathUS taught me to keep trying and to never take my eye off the ball. Completing a postgraduate degree was never in my plans. I only intended doing short courses to polish my career and to find employment so I could gain further experience to add on to the short experience I already had in the industry.
“I had also been told a few times that there was no way I would make it into a Master's programme after having failed so many modules over the years; I believed that and I took the idea of me never getting into a Master's in AgriScience to heart. However, as soon as I found out that I had passed my undergraduate degree successfully, I approached the Faculty of AgriScience for guidance with regards to what I could do next. It showed me that no matter what the world said or how much I doubted myself, no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no heart or mind has ever imagined what God has planned for me."
Ndyondya is currently working on an MSc Agricultural Economics degree and hopes to do research on farm management or a research topic on rural development.
“As much as I am a city girl from Durban now, I grew up around small-scale farmers in Tsolo in the Eastern Cape and I have always wanted those small-scale farmers to make it to the commercial level of farming. I wanted to study towards a scarce-skills degree and I wanted to have a helping hand in getting small-scale farmers to a commercial level of farming. I want to see small-scale farmers have the opportunity to export and play an active role in the value chain and I also want to see less farmers failing at farming."
Ndyondya's future plans include climbing the co-operate ladder in agriculture through her involvement in Logistics or International Trade and she hopes to do some farming herself.
More about SciMathUS
The SciMathUS programme forms part of a variety of units within the Faculty of Education at SU and specifically in the Stellenbosch University Centre for Pedagogy. The programme annually offers 100 learners, who have already passed Grade 12, but do not qualify for higher education selection, a second opportunity to improve their NSC results in Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Accounting to enable them to re-apply for university programmes; specifically those focusing on STEM related fields.
Since the inception of the SciMathUS programme in 2001, more than 1 000 students have successfully completed it. The programme focuses mainly on helping matric learners to improve their National Senior Certificate marks in Mathematics and Physical Sciences. The programme also offers Accounting and Introduction to Economics.
SciMathUS celebrates its 20th year of changing lives this year. The 20-year celebrations will take the form of an online campaign, called #ChangingLives. The aim is to make sure that the programme, with support from all stakeholders, continues to create even more opportunities for students to reach their full academic potential over the next 20 years.
Please follow SciMathUS' social media pages over the next few months, where the spotlight will shine on the programme as well as alumni who have since graduated and made great strides in their respective fields.
You can follow SciMathUS on the following channels:
Facebook – Stellenbosch Alumni / SciMathUS
Instagram – @MatiesAlumni / @scimathus
Twitter – @SU_Alumni / @SUNCEP
Join Maties Connect: https://matiesconnect.com/groups/53/feed
Matriculants who are interested in SciMathUS can contact Adele Poole at 021 808 3032 or apool@sun.ac.za for more information about the programme.
