Siphenkosi Nqoro’s journey to success involved balancing a job as a fuel station attendant with his studies at the university for his LLB.
“Law is something I have always wanted to do, and I promised myself that despite the odds, I’d always pursue my ambition,” he said, according to Valentine Zoza.
The South African go-getter said that he needed to find paid labor to support his unemployed parents after high school. He quickly got work as a full-time petrol attendant at a Shell garage in Mdantsane because he knew his parents were struggling and felt compelled to look after them.
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Nqoro, however, enrolled at the University of Fort Hare in 2016 as a law student after remembering that he had promised himself that he would one day study law.
His supervisor allowed him to enroll in the course and he worked 12-hour night shifts while pursuing his LLB degree. He recounted that “I used to work the night shift, bathe and prepare for school, and then be expected to go to work again, but the garage staff was quite flexible. Sometimes I would approach my superiors and ask them to adapt my schedule, and they would do it gracefully.”
Before his degree certificate could be released, he had to work extremely hard to pay off the debt he owed the university when he encountered difficulties with the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and was denied funding.
Even so, Nqoro started his articles of clerkship at the East London legal company Gondongwana Ngonyama Pakade Attorneys after earning his Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in law from the University of Fort Hare in 2021.
He took and passed the Bar Association’s board exams in 2023, and in 2024 he took the oath of office to become an attorney at the Makhanda High Court in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa.
“My advice to others, who may fear to chase their dreams, is to start as soon as they can, despite the odds,” he said. “I came to the university with one blanket and saw my peers receiving financial help from home, but it was different for me – I had to be the provider.”
“Anyone with the same dream I had must be willing to go the extra mile,” Nqoro stated.
