Changing course – mature students prove the power of perseverance

A chief executive turned medical student. A budding financial planner. An advertising entrepreneur come published author. Whether they’ve completely altered their career, found a new passion, or built on existing talents, these mature students believe it’s never too late to pursue your passion.

Excelling in the business world where he became chief executive of highly successful distribution company, Daniel Benjamin, now 45, changed everything last year to follow his dream of becoming a doctor. Armed with an undeniable work ethic, Benjamin previously completed a BCom and a Master of Business Administration while working full-time. Yet, he’s always known where his true calling lies.

Growing up in the United States, Benjamin had in fact completed a year of pre-med when life led him to South Africa where he married and become father to five boys. More than 20 years later, having succeeded in the business world and sold off his shares in the company, he knew he had enough time and money to return to his first love.

“Becoming a doctor means more to me than just a drive to help people,” he wrote in a motivation letter applying to the University of the Witwatersrand Graduate Entry Medical Programme, which allows entry of suitably qualified candidates into the third year of the MBBCh degree. “It includes a fascination with human biology, a quest to help diagnose and treat illness and disease, and a wish to work in a field where I believe that I can best utilise my abilities.”

Having faced rejection after his initial application, Benjamin is now in his fourth year of full-time medical studies at Wits.

Being almost twice the age of his fellow students is something he’s embraced. “I only see benefits in being a more mature student,” he says. “It helps with really wanting to do the degree and with how you approach studying and the various rules that others are so nervous about. You can also help fellow students as you have enough life experience to know what’s important and what’s not.”

A clinical claims consultant at Discovery Health, David Klatzkin decided to pursue a BCom in his 30s. Having done a basic ambulance-assistant course after matric, he joined Hatzolah and also spent time at a Yeshiva and as a volunteer for Magen David Adom in Israel. Thereafter, he completed intermediate life support training and returned to Hatzolah. He later began his career at Discovery.

“The idea of starting a degree was daunting as I hadn’t completed the first few I’d begun over the years. I had however reached the point where I felt I needed one to further my career,” Klatzkin says.

Newly married and working full-time at Discovery, which helped subsidise his studies, Klatzkin decided to take things slowly when he began his BCom through Wits in 2018. “It took me three years to complete the first year,” he says. “Some people thought I was mad, but I decided to rather take on too little but finish and gain a life skill than take on too much and fail or drop a course.” His strategy paid off, and Klatzkin completed his BCom at the end of 2022, a “surreal” experience.

Yet, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. While finding time to study was always a challenge, becoming a father in 2021 took things to another level. “My lectures were online in the evenings making it difficult, especially when the little guy was screaming his lungs out,” he recalls. “I would feel bad about leaving my wife alone so would go back and forth from the lecture helping with bottles and bath time. I ended up working when he was sleeping.

“Looking at pictures of my wife and son whenever things were tough helped,” he says. “They keep me motivated. This week, I’ll be crossing the Great Hall and getting capped as a BCom graduate.”

In spite of the associated challenges, Klatzkin says he now has the study bug, and is completing a post-graduate diploma in financial planning.

Passionate about the written word, author Lynn Joffe, who remains chief executive and executive creative director of Creatrix, a multilingual storytelling and branded content agency, is also a dedicated student. Having attained a Bachelor of Arts degree in the early 1980s as she worked her way up “from typist to copywriter and beyond”, Joffe says she’s always wanted to advance her “academic chops”, which is why she decided to pursue a Masters in Creative Writing at Wits in 2015.

“What sparked the decision was a beloved age-mate dying of cancer in 2014,” she says. “I was jolted into the realisation that time was finite, and that if I wanted to write ‘literature’, I needed the structure and discipline of the academy.” She graduated in July 2017 at the age of 58, and then spent two years working with an editor before her debut novel, The Gospel According to Wanda B. Lazarus was published.

Writing for commercial projects and creating an imaginary work from the depths of your soul are completely different things, she says. “Since Wanda has been published, I have a secret – and not so secret – feeling of accomplishment. I don’t think I would have been able to write this book earlier in my life – it’s a kind of a cosmic bildungsroman – and I sense that recognition breeds confidence and success breeds further success. Work is still important, I continue to juggle it, but I imagine that writing fiction will take greater precedence in the future.”

Joffe is taking a sabbatical from a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Pretoria. Not only giving rise to her next literary work, this qualification will allow her to teach, extending her love for education. Joffe says she thinks of her studies as representing the maturity to realise her fullest potential. “This is something I couldn’t do in younger years,” she says, “but which experience has led me to be able to self-actualise, as [American psychologist] Abraham Harold Maslow would say.”