Rohan Cloete, a matriculant from Curro Somerset West, has long aspired to work for Nasa. With his journey starting at UCT, where he will study astro physics, he may well be on the right path.
To earn a place in the three-year course, Cloete’s National Senior Certificate (NSC) exam results needed to be stellar, and that they were: he obtained seven distinctions in his finals. His subject choices were English home language, Afrikaans, life orientation, core mathematics, physical sciences and accounting.
Interestingly, his favourite among them was life orientation, in which he enjoyed gaining insight into human nature and debating controversial topics in the classroom.
Cloete’s road to success was not always an easy one thanks to the challenging circumstances presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, which required a lot of home schooling. But he took it in his stride and instead turned the “alone” time into an advantage.
“I did a lot of additional learning on a topic and consulted with further resources when needed,” Cloete pointed out. “I came to enjoy the self-study as I am a person who likes doing things behind the scenes; in fact, through remote learning I could put a lot more time into my studies than if I was at school.”
All of this self-discipline will serve the young man well as he heads off towards furthering his studies at tertiary level. On hopefully achieving his degree in 2024, he has aspirations to head to America and venture on a path towards Nasa.
“This dream started as a joke, that I would go to Nasa, but now through my studies that looks at the fundamentals of the universe and the trajectory of asteroids, among other things, I am on the right track,” Cloete related.
He started his schooling at Curro Somerset West in Grade 8 as a Ruta Setchbaba beneficiary, Curro’s scholarship programme.
“Rohan has been a pleasure to have as a learner at our school. He is a highly talented but humble student, who has a very clear idea of what he wants and how to get it,” said Graeme Waite, Executive Head of Curro Somerset West. “His performance in the final exams was excellent, but this does not surprise me – he is diligent and focused, and gets things done. We wish him well on his journey towards becoming an astro physicist.”
