Studying PGDA While Working: The Ultimate Grit Test

Funding her studies had never been simple, but it became her reality the moment she stepped beyond her undergraduate degree. Her parents had supported her to this point, but now Susan had to come up with another plan. She started a full-time job in accounting. firm, earning a salary and doing the best she could. But the fees kept coming, and the numbers were not always adding up.

At the end of her first year of PGDA, she hit a wall. Her outstanding fees were blocking her from viewing her results and registering for the following year. She had applied for bursaries, explored every option she could find, and come up empty.

Private institutions, she learned quickly, sit outside the reach of most funding opportunities. So she did what she had always done; she found a way. A Capitec loan taken out not for something new, but just to stay in the game. To see her results. To keep going.

It was not the plan, but she knew that stress was not going to produce money. She focused on what she could control, paid what she could each month, and kept her eyes on the finish line.

It was during this time that she took inspiration from another CA(SA) she knew and hung a poster in her room. The words on the wall read: I passed my PGDA in 2025. She had not passed yet when she put it there. That was the point. It was a declaration of something coming.

Postgraduate studies are more than just a course on the side. It is the kind of endeavour that requires grit, determination, and a willingness to give up the things that feel good now for the things that matter later. In Susan's case, she had a dream to work towards. And nothing was going to change her mind.

Her weeks had a specific rhythm. Work during the day. Study in the evenings. Weekends belonged to the books. She told her family not to expect her home as often. She saw her friends once every few months. That was the deal she had made with herself, and she kept it.

As Chairperson of the African Women Chartered Accountants (AWCA) Milpark Student Chapter, she went all in. She was a go-getter. The kind of person who saw what needed to be done and did it without waiting to be asked. The role sharpened skills that no textbook could.

This is how she joined a community of driven, like-minded people who understood the journey because they were living it too. She had not joined AWCA to receive. She had joined because she believed that lifting others was part of the work.

Read More: Bennie Hancke Achieves His CA Goal with Milpark’s PGDA

Susan had been researching for months and her sights were already set on a big move to FirstRand Bank. They take only 12 people from the entire country. And the process leading to a placement was as complex as it was a test of one’s perseverance. The pressure was intensified by the fact that Susan had been accepted before her final PGDA results were released, meaning she still had to secure a pass to take up the opportunity.

Susan had taken her final PGDA exam and passed. After everything it had taken to get there, the relief was real. But there was no time to ‘sit back.'

The final interview fell the day before her birthday. She walked in as someone who had spent years working full-time, studying part-time, chairing a student organisation, and funding her own education.

Everything she had been through had prepared her for that room. When the moment came, she shared openly about paying her own fees. She was not asking for anything. She was simply being herself.

She had walked out of that interview having given everything she had. The preparation, the honesty, the years of hard work and discipline that had brought her to that room. Now it was out of her hands. There was nothing left to do but wait.

Then that email arrived. Probably the best email she ever received.

She read it once. Then again. FirstRand was in a position to fund students and wanted to know her financial needs. She sat with it for a moment, not quite able to process what she was seeing. After spending so long working out how to keep going, suddenly the answer was in front of her. The loan she had taken out just to see her results. All of it would be covered by this bursary. And almost like an added bonus, the training contract was confirmed shortly after. And it felt like all the weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

Susan is now in her first year of articles at FirstRand Bank, significant step on the road to becoming a Chartered Accountant. The dream she set for herself as a teenager, the one that put her under pressure, is on the horizon.

Looking back, she is clear about what made the difference. Milpark gave her more than a qualification. It gave her the structure to study while working, the community to lean on when things got hard, and the Immersive Online Learning (IO Learning) model built for students who are living a full life while pursuing a bigger one. "They don't expect that you already know everything," she says. "They teach you from the foundation up, and they are always willing to listen."

Discipline and hard work, she will tell you, have a reward. Susan is living proof.