and then we move on to [Music] mathematics first place from Western Cape we have renish high school Ren sorry renish girls high school Melissa mulah onto the fifth Quinto um renish girls high school Melissa Mala final category the 2023 NSC National top learner from Western Cape Melissa Mula congratulations she is the top [Applause] learner uh hello hello guys welcome back to gift vity TV uh this is your host gift for Z I know you've been saying I must find a Melissa MOA to be on this channel H finally I found her don't make sure that
you like this video Hit thumbs up let's get to 50,000 likes in this video we need 1 million views for for this video here right H we have um the overall uh top achiever of South Africa right if you're doing H matrick in 2023 yeah this is your top achiever overall uh in South Africa let's get to know her better so that all all of us who can be overs of South Africa hi Hi how are you I'm good in you good thank you yes can you please introduce yourself to my audience at all um
hi my name is Melissa Miller I went to school at renish girls high school which is here in stalos which is where I study I'm currently studying megatronic engineering at Stamos University okay okay okay okay okay okay so let's let's take it back to high school now right were you a top achieving student throughout High School like since grade eight grade N grade 10 yeah I have been I've been Topp in my grade since grade four grade four yeah yeah yeah I think it does just take consistent work yeah out is okay so let's get
to where you selected your your your your subjects now in grade 10 you wanted to do math science and stuff like what what may do do math and science beside doing like the comment stream okay so I really do like math and science and I've always found them very interesting and I chose to do so my subjects were Life Sciences physical sciences and accounting and I chose to do do those because at the end of grade nine when you have to choose for grade 10 I didn't really know which route I wanted to go in
after school so I think that those three subjects kind of kept my options open because I could still go into business I could go into I could study a human life sciences or I could do engineering which I'm doing now okay okay okay okay okay uh Melissa we brought you in this channel because you a top achiever in the country right almost if there was one million students were wrting metric and you you above all of them right so uh remind us we top achiever for what for maths and then overall overall so for how
much did you get for mathematics 100% at the end of my check 100% which other subjects physics uh physics I got 99 but I got 100% for accounting as well okay so how many 100% do you get I got just for mass and accounting I got a few 99s so few 99s which ones were 99 I need to remember you taking me back seven months I know I got for live Sciences physical sciences I need to remember what else it was I think for Africans no I remember getting a 97 for something I can't remember
so what was your lowest Mark uh English home language it was 93 93 so average in total was what it was 97.6 if I remember right y y y y y y 97.6 okay let's dissect mathematics uh you to much for mathematics in the country right so you are the one who got the highest Mark in mathematics in the in the country right let's get to how do you study mathematics what can you give advice to someone who's really struggling in mathematics who wants to get a good Mark you know even if they a good
Mark in mathematics yeah I think a lot of people have a mental block against maths and that can build up from a primary school level where if you're struggling with fractions for example then all of a sudden you don't like maths or you have a teacher that you don't like so much then all of a sudden you have this mental block towards math and everyone speaks about math and science as being these really difficult subjects so I think people have the wrong perception about them before they even start with physical sciences in grade 10 they
already think oh it's going to be this big scary thing that I'm not going to be able to do and I think just shifting your mindset to a more positive mindset thinking I can do this because they do teach you the things from the beginning so if you just listen to your teachers you do your work after school you're going to be more than fine and then I think for math specifically science as well but it's very important to do past papers because the questions they aren't the exact same questions but the type of questions
repeat themselves so you can so it's good to do a lot of past papers just so that you can get exposure so that when you're in that exam and it is a stressful situation no one enjoys writing a math exam for example it is a stressful situation so if you just practice every different scenario you're much more comfortable and I think that really helps especially in finals yeah what are the strategies like how do you do when you get into the question paper making sure that you get everything like what do you do which question
do you know and all of that how do you simplify how which resources did you use you know and stuff yeah so besides past papers just getting comfortable with the way the questions are asked I think you do the questions that you most comfortable with first because the paper a lot of the time your confidence um so I think you have to systematically work through a paper so start with the question that you're most comfortable with build your confidence so that you get to the questions later on that you struggle with more once you built
up some confidence during the paper Okay Okay so what other resources online resources did you use beside practicing question papers and and stuff like there are quite a few YouTube videos that do explain Concepts quite well and but I think besides that the P Paper website has so many P papers if you just work through all of those you're going to be exposed to every different type of question okay use the pass paper uh website okay okay so let's get to accounting now we're just seing the 100% Ines like how did you start accounting spe
spefic oh accounting specifically again it's just practice so you go through the theory first make sure that you understand all the different concepts and then I think just doing the past papers you see the different ways in which the concepts are asked so that's quite important just to again get comfortable with it so like like let's go to Just smaller detail on accountings accoun they watching us they want to get that 100 person like like how do I don't know accounting and stuff and stuff kind but what is it that you can yeah that use
yes they practice P question paper as well but there's that thing that is different that you use I don't think there's necessarily anything different I think I just voiced when I was stuck quite quickly so as soon as you get stuck so obviously try struggle struggle through the question first think of all the different ways that you could possibly do it and then if you're really stuck then only you consult the memo or you ask a teacher because if you're just going to you can't try a question struggle with it a little bit then look
at the memo straight away because you not really going to learn anything you have to first struggle through the question quite a few times ask people how they did it find different ways to do it ask the teacher questions then try it by yourself and then if you still get it wrong then you can look at the memo memo is a cheat code you don't have it during the exam yeah yeah yeah yeah it says guys okay let's disect physics now we're just getting those ones the with physics you got 99 yeah so how how
did you do it how did you do it again I think it's the same r recipe for all of my subjects it was ask when you stuck practice past papers many many times so that you get comfortable with it work through the paper systematically do what you're comfortable with build confidence and yeah I think what I said earlier about the Shifting the negative mindset especially with regards to math and science shifting that to a positive mindset is quite important because then it's like this big scary challenge that you feel you can't do okay okay so
let's talk about you as a student now right uh what are the things that you engaged in grade 12 were you always in books or you did you engage in some activities like extra mural activities that kept you you know and stuff or you always you didn't sleep how many hours did you sleep you know because you're talking with the top of the country right we just want to know we were sleeping the same hours as the normal St and stuff um I definitely got more than enough sleep I didn't go to bed late before
any exam I think that's also quite important get enough sleep the night before um so that your brain's fresh for the exam but extra mural activities during school I played fing hockey and water polo and I was on the school loar counil so I had quite a busy schedule but I think that also helped me because I'm someone who likes being busy and then because it helps me not procrastinate because you only have an hour in the day to be able to do your homework and study so you have to sit down in that hour
it's not I have five hours ahead of me I can waste to maybe do three hours of work I think for me keeping busy was one of my recipes okay so you're playing with this it's water water polo and hockey oh and hockey you see guys you know you must play some soccer if you love soccer play netball if you love netball and but make sure how how are you able to balance all of this did you have a schedule or something that help you to be able to balance everything because sometimes it's not easy
to balance things you know students will find them procrastinating if they're playing soccer they'll focus on soccer more than their books how did you make sure you separate your time accordingly so that everything is balanced and you become the top achiever of the country even I think I had set practice times for my hockey and water po so I knew during those times I wouldn't be able to work so then you schedule your working hours around those then obviously you have to plan for unforeseen circumstances because I know as part of the um Leadership Council
of the school there were quite a few things where you get called on last minute where you have to attend an event or you have extra meetings before school and that does make it quite difficult because those are unplanned times where you have to where you're not able to study so I think just plan around your exercise have a set time in the day where you exercise best at and then do some work in between that and then have an hour or so hour or two a day where you plan for anything unforeseen and that's
also your relax time if you want okay okay okay no before before we close I just want us know like what kept you and motivated throughout what kept you inspired what what is the drive that made you like achieve everything think that you I well I've always been a very self-driven person so I think for me it was a goal that I set to myself um didn't necessarily set one to become the top achiever but I wanted to do the best that I possibly could and I think that also helped me because I didn't put
this pressure on myself I have to be the top achiever I kind of just drove like strive to be the best that I could and I think that it's a positive type of pressure it's not a negative thing like oh I failed one test now I won't be top achiever it was never any like that it was always just I want to do the best that I possibly can okay were you getting 100% throughout metric year that for ma oh I can't remember okay there might have been one I can't remember she erased everything now
she's focusing on University right so now uh okay you did well and you receive a text or an email or how did you feel when you receive an email that you know you're invited to be one of the to us of the country I think it did come as quite a surprise I mean my mom loves telling the story but um we gave my school clothes away we donated them because we thought I wasn't going to wear them again but then obviously at the awards you have to wear them so we had to phone phone
and ask for them back so I mean it came as a surprise and I was just very happy because you don't get told what you um achieved when you invited to the event so I had absolutely no idea at okay but yeah until good now you were like of the country how how is it that s to you that now you are the top achiever of the country now I think it did take a while to sit in I mean in the the first few days were absolutely crazy it was interview after interview and it
was very overwhelming but I think it actually helped me grow as a person how did you feel now I mean I think I was very overwhelmed in the beginning the first few days were quite crazy but it did s in after a while and I think it's just a good confidence boost for or confidence with uh you decided to come to University and study course and you said you to to study mechatronics engineering what what inspired you to study mechatronics did you do Life Sciences I did do life science but you know that people when
they doing well they want to be doctors and stuff they do medicine what made you choose to study meic uh course really love math and science and engineering as a like of ma and so I was considering medicine for quite a while and it was only towards the end that I decided to take the engineering route but I want to do my postgrad in my medical engineering so wow so you want to meet me with the biomedical engineering hey hey hey okay H let's not take too much time I know you are an engineering student
you oh no no so what can you say to every student that is watching us in the million are watching this video you know what can you say to them we can look at them and what will keep them motivated throughout the you know now they they're about to write the examination not so long what can you say to them well I know prelims are coming up for the Matrix your preliminary exams so that is a very stressful time and I think good preparation for your prelim exams is vital for your final exams because it
takes a lot of the pressure off finals because the work is the same so I would say definitely focus on studying for your prelims and then I think it's also just important to take time for yourself do the things that you like it makes it easier to sit down and study when you really have to stud just a quote anywh you don't have any code that you can leave them with any code okay I know she's not a literature student this is the engineering student thank you so much Melissa for your time on gift vity
TV we appreciate it and we wish you all the best with engineering guys leave a nice comment and don't forget to subscribe as we on a road to 100 ,000 subscribers we bring the best in this channel we move to the ends of the world so that you can become the best so it's possible she is here with me and she's studying mechatronics engineering at stalos University thank you so much thank you thank you bye by no thank you Melissa
