VARSITY SUCKS

Look around you, how many drop outs have you seen or met? How many unemployed youth with no hope on their faces have you seen? These individuals have been to colleges, universities and universities of technology, yet the choices they made still haunt them, personally writing this article, I am one of them.

We fall victims of studying educational courses that we do not like, due to the fact that we did not meet the minimum admission requirements for a specific field of study, then your frontal lobe helps you make a temporary decision which is going to impact you greatly in your life. Such impulsive decisions make their way when we realise that the courses we want to study are full. Also the lack of funding for our desired courses or not meeting the admission requirements can lead to such decisions. Most students do not want to consider a gap year; therefore they undertake any available course. The whole concept is like having a vegan to choose pork just because mock meat is unavailable at a restaurant. Let’s go through the academic lives of the following individuals:

Maditaba Bianca Ramalebo, an unemployed National Diploma graduate in Public Management says that her desire was to study business management, which was her first choice but due to the fact that her admission points were low, she decided to enrol for Public Management which was nowhere near her second choice. Maditaba has filled many application forms for internships and jobs but due to the mere fact that she never had the love for what she studied, makes it hard for her to get employment. When asked what she would do if she was given a chance again in the university premises before making the impulsive decision she made, she said “I would go to a college, upgrade my marks and then do the course that is closer to my heart, it feels like I robbed myself because I never enjoyed the course through those years but still I endured”. She currently plans to enrol for a course in Supply Chain Management.

Itumeleng Mokodutlo, a National Diploma in Software Development graduate, initially studied Business Administration while he was on a gap year endeavour, which he never enjoyed because of a lot of theory at Motheo TVET college. Upon discovering that there was no longer space in the Central University of Technology, he said that he wanted to study agricultural management but then found out that there was no space and he was placed on the waiting list, so he decided to leave it and go for Information Technology because it had ample space, however he didn’t enjoy the course up until his final year. He is currently an intern in the Transmissions Department at Vodacom and has taken numerous internships inside the country and one overseas.

Mbuiselo Thomas Matowane, a Medical Student at the China Medical University, was accepted at University of Cape Town to study medicine but then he couldn’t leave for Cape Town. He gave back to the community by assisting the learners at Iphateleng High School with Maths, Science and other subjects. He thereafter decided to enrol for a National Diploma in Marketing at the Central University of Technology, after completing his Marketing course, he enrolled at the Glen College of Agriculture, where he was chosen to go to China.

David Frost said “don’t aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally”. There’s an African saying that I came across in an Indian Zoo that read, “Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up, it knows that it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed”. Every morning in Africa there’s a lion that wakes up, it knows that it must run faster than the fastest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn’t matter if you are a lion or a gazelle when the sun comes out, you’d better be running”. The essence of the proverb is to never let your dreams die just because you did not study what you wanted to study.

Words to the new unemployed matriculants who will be seeking enrolments into various universities this week, Mark Anthony said “Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life”. If you find the course you wanted to study requiring you to have more points, go upgrade at a college, take a gap year, seek temporary employment, enrol for something else, switch a University, but whatever you do, make sure that you do not get a doctorate, diploma or become a University ancestor due to studying something that you hate. We find people taking more years than anticipated or even dropping out or worse finding jobs that they hate and end up complaining for the rest of their lives. We all have a different path to walk, which require us to make efforts to reach our desired destinations. It is thus important for us to remain informed in order to make sound decisions. Do not rob yourself the joy of life, observe all avenues before you utter words such as “Varsity Sucks”.

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