Laying Firm Foundations

by Bathandekile Nenjelele

At first glance the CIDA offerings may seem too good to be true, but they are genuinely pretty amazing; the most fundamental of them all being the Foundation Year Programme.

With many of us not being accepted into most universities and other institutions because of our low marks it is very refreshing to find an institution that offers us young, bright minds an opportunity to re-do those subjects and others in which we hadn’t achieved high enough marks to get onto a degree course - which would hopefully lead to a successful career.

The Foundation programme teaches the subjects we need to be fully equipped to study the BBA degree; mathematics, English, business management, accounting, personal leadership and management as well as end-user computing.

When I was told about it I was not happy, I felt I knew all these subjects, plus I had passed my Matric with 60-80% in all my subjects except for maths (of course). It all looked easy and to start with, seemed easy too. It was things we had learned in high school, Grade 9 to be exact. I was certain that I was going to drop out and go look for a job instead, until one day we learned how to convert a decimal into a fraction.

To my horror this was all new to me, I felt like someone was opening my brain and pouring in tons of useful information I had struggled with all my life. It finally clicked that the reason I struggled with maths and never really took an interest in accounting either was because I never quite grasped the basics of the subject.

Unlike many of my fellow students I was quite lucky; the school I went to was a pretty good semi-private school. I did well throughout my years in high school but not well enough to land a bursary or get accepted to Wits.

"For quite a long time I believed that it was my fault and that I wasn’t clever enough or smart enough. Now that  I am doing the Foundation programme I am slowly realizing that this is not true, the academic support that we are receiving is enabling each one of us to believe in ourselves and to develop within us an ‘’I can’’ mindset."

What better could a person need in life but the tools to help build their own future?

I know that with the right partners, donors and funders behind us we in the CIDA City Campus community could become even greater and better. I am opening my mind to new concepts and trying to make it the most powerful tool I could have. All I need to do now though is keep polishing and honing my skills to do even better than I did in High school.

Thanks to the CIDA Foundation Year Programme, I am doing just that!