A brilliant African Lady named Maud Chifamba who bagged her bachelor’s degree at the age of 18 and, masters degree at 20 years old has won a fully funded scholarship to continue her education at the Wharton School of Business in the United States.
Maud who is a Zimbabwe native won a fully funded 155,000 dollars worth of fellowship from Wharton Africa to study for her Masters of Business Administration, at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.
She was born into a poor family and became an orphan at a very young age. Her father died when she was 5 years old and her mother died of cancer when she was 13. Because of her poor upbringing, she could not get a standard education.
She was able to fight her way to have a standard education through her academic prowess. She was mistakenly given the examination paper of the grade before hers which she passed excellently.
Her outstanding intellectual prowess fast-tracked her education. Despite not having the money to go to high school, Maud studied on her own and completed her Ordinary Level in just two years.
She was later identified by the Ministry of Education who enrolled to sit for the Advanced Level Examination in Zimbabwe. After an outstanding performance at the A-Level examination, she was granted a four-year scholarship of about $10,000.
At the age of 14, she was admitted to earn a Bachelor’s degree in Accountancy at the University of Zimbabwe and was one of the youngest ever graduates of the university at the age of 18. She proceeded to earn a Master of Science (MSc) in Accountancy from the same university at 20.
“After Grade 7 there was no school for me to go to high school, the normal thing in our community was getting married. I did not like my mother`s marriage that is one of the things that motivated me to work hard,” Maud said.
“At home, we attempted to start businesses to change our circumstances. They always looked good on paper, but they failed. This is why I decided to study accounting, to understand why businesses failed,” she added.
She then went on to qualify as a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe and was certified as a Public Accountant by the Public Accountants and Auditors Board Zimbabwe at the age of 23.