while Elizabeth Robertson, seventy four, started her master's degree at Stellenbosch university, her fellow students thought she changed into a new professor on campus.
once the students discovered out she changed into certainly one of them, they were well mannered, respectful, and turned, like her, to stressing about whether they could pass.
"i am nonetheless astounded," stated Robertson, of her commencement on Thursday final week with a master's degree in historical cultures, cum laude.
Robertson, who's originally from England, advised News24 that there had been many days that she just desired to give up, and while she exceeded in her dissertation, the look ahead to the examiners' comments changed into see you later that she feared the worst.
"I surely started out to assume I had failed," she stated.
Robertson studied the 6th and 5th century BCE educational structures in Athens and Sparta, the two maximum outstanding metropolis states in those intervals.
Her thesis subject matter changed into "growing up Greek: The differing trips through childhood in ancient Athens and Sparta".
It was no longer her first time at university.
Her major for her Bachelor of Arts diploma have been in history.
'Blood, sweat, tears'
Her husband died in 2010 and a few years later she moved to Stellenbosch and then to Somerset West, according to Stellenbosch university's biography on her. Robertson did now not know anybody besides her daughter and her daughter's own family.
She felt it might be unfair for her daughter and her own family to preserve her entertained, so when she noticed an advertisement for a postgraduate degree at Stellenbosch, she signed up, and completed it in 2014.
"I thoroughly enjoyed it," she stated.
"while it changed into achieved I failed to recognize what do with myself. So I thought i'd do a grasp's."
She stated the remaining three months of the programme had been hard and draining – "a nightmare sincerely".
requested for advice to different students suffering with the final lengthy haul, she said: "suppose how much it has price you in blood, sweat, and tears. do not give up. it is just the last hurdle."
despite the fact that Robertson reads loads and misses the intensity she discovered in the books she examine for her master's, for now in addition look at isn't a part of her plan.
"however I won't say never," she laughs.