She then enrolled for the bridging course and the PGDA at Milpark Education in 2022 and she remembers how she was taken aback initially at the intensity of the work and the course load. “Many subjects like management accounting and auditing I had never encountered before, and I was learning everything from scratch.”
On her first test in management accounting, Merilyn scored 27%. “I cried because I had been studying every night and I was thinking, what is the point of working so hard?” In other subjects, like tax, she also struggled at first, but eventually she learned to love it. “I talked to the assistant lecturer and he really helped me to understand it and laid a foundation that stayed with me.”
Another big contributing factor in her motivational process was the fact that she had a study partner from Milpark, whom she could check in with regularly. “We held each other accountable, and told each other it would be okay, to keep on doing what we were doing and this really helped me.”
She admits that the PGDA was a bit of a rollercoaster in terms of failing some tests and passing others, and learning to study every day, even when she was at work. At this point, she had a job as a receptionist which allowed her to fit in some extra study time.
“I remember the fatigue, being really tired,” she says. “I would cry about the smallest thing and have to remind myself why I was doing this. But you must put in the work.” When she got her final results and saw that she had passed, she couldn’t believe it. “I knew my life would change and that I would leave SA and come to the UK.”
That was exactly what she did. Now, she wants to spend every free moment she has exploring to go travelling. “Sometimes, it feels like it is still sinking in, that I am here and that this is my life,” she says.
