Throughout her life, Milpark student Nobuhle Moyo has been an introvert. But when she received an email about the Spencer-RIMS Risk Management Challenge, she knew she was being given a sign – and she had to respond.
“I usually don’t find it easy to take initiative,” Nobuhle says. “But when I received this email, I told myself, I had to do this. Firstly, because I am studying Risk and Compliance, so it is in my field. And secondly because I knew it would push me to grow, to take the next step toward my dream of working in Risk Management.”
Nobuhle and the rest of the team – Nicole Stow, Prudence Motha and Matthew Vagle – are proud to have made it to the top eight of the competition. In May, the team, known as the Risk Avengers, will be heading to the RISKWORLD Conference in California, where they will present the findings of their case study, and hopefully reach first place.
“I’m excited,” admits Nobuhle. “Because I have never travelled outside South Africa, and we get to go to the US! But I am also very nervous.”
Why is she nervous?
“I’ve never done public speaking before,” she says. “It is scary imagining myself speaking in front of a large crowd at the conference.”
But Nobuhle has taken this opportunity to develop herself. Despite full days working as an Anti-Money Laundering Specialist at ABSA, she spends a good part of the night walking around the house and reciting her part of the team presentation.
Learning to do public speaking is one of many things Nobuhle has found out she is capable of throughout the course of this challenge. Another lesson comes from this being her first time meeting other Milpark students and working with them in a team. Until now, Nobuhle has had five years of purely online study with no contact, no lectures, no meeting other students. She says that it can be difficult, but she motivates herself to do it because she knows it is enriching her life, despite the challenges.
“From working in this team, I learned that I have things to say that are important and add value, that I have potential, and that people will acknowledge my ideas and work on them with me,” Nobuhle says. “It’s also made me work on being louder, more outspoken. Even in my personal life! It doesn’t happen overnight, of course, but I want to try.”
Fortunately, Nobuhle has a supportive network in her husband and brother, and she credits them with helping her with much of her success. For other students, she has some words of advice as well.
“Work hard!” she says. “Put the maximum effort that you can into what you’re doing. And most importantly, be understanding. If our team had failed to understand each other, we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t have made it as far as we have.”
