“Hearing the news that I have received Cum Laude and the Dean’s Merit award was absolutely astonishing for me. However, this was only possible due to the incredible supervisors that I had, who were Dr Alveen Singh and Professor Colin Thakur,” said an elated graduate.
Thaneshni Moodley, the dynamic 27-year-old from Malvern, graduated with her Master of Information and Communications Technology in the Faculty of Accounting and Informatics at the Durban University of Technology’s (DUT’s) 2024 Spring Graduation at the Durban Exhibition Centre on 19 September 2024.
Moodley shared on her incredible journey at DUT which had been times she would always cherish.
The senior business analyst for Retailability spoke fondly of her student journey, saying that the Department of Information Technology had well prepared her for the working world. “The IT department has excellent and supportive lecturers as well as tutoring classes which was necessary. I started with a Diploma in Business Applications which is to become business analyst. This diploma offers a module in SAP which is in high demand for business analysts with great pay,” replied Moodley.
She further relayed that during her third year of campus to obtain a diploma, she and her team were required to build a system for a company. She indicated that DUT continuously advised them on the procedures to work with outside companies.
“This included how to investigate, analyse and ask questions, how to software develop in increments using the agile method which a lot of companies have implemented, how to work has a team and how to present our work. All of the above adequately prepared me for the outside world, to work and apply myself. My team received the best software project award for 2017,” she beamed.
I remained headstrong and determined to complete my Master’s no matter the challenges I might have received
Speaking on her supervisors and their roles, Moodley reiterated that Dr Alveen Singh was a superb supervisor, full of patience, and willing to guide and teach. “He went step by step with my Master’s dissertation, always providing feedback on time and explaining the amendments required to be done. Whereas Professor Thakur took my dissertations to the next level and made it possible to obtain Cum Laude. He knew exactly what I needed to add and amend to my dissertation to obtain it,” she said.
However, Moodley did highlight that she had faced some challenges as a student, adding that due to working in Umhlanga and living in Westville, the travelling was exhausting.
“Due to my work hours, Prof Thakur was always accommodating, I used to come from work around 6pm, and have an MS Teams meeting with Prof Thakur where he used to provide his advice on where I would need to make improvements. I used to work on it straight afterwards or wake up at 4am the next morning to continue my work,” shared Moodley.
She expressed that on weekends she used to work on her Master’s.
“To receive the best results, it requires consistency and hard work. I remained headstrong and determined to complete my Master’s no matter the challenges I might have received and as a result, it paid off in the end,” explained Moodley.
Having such an achievement also positively impacted her family, especially Moodley’s mum.
“All of this would have also not have been possible without my amazing mum. She was my pillar of strength, completing a Master’s qualification is not an easy journey but my mum provided the support and advice I needed to continuously pull through and move forward. My mum was absolutely excited and is counting down the days to my big graduation. My family as well was happy for me, and we celebrated this big milestone in my life,” she added.
For Moodley, Information Technology was always her choice of study.“With my Master’s I had noticed that South Africa has not adopted machine learning to identify retail complaints posted on social media. My dissertation is based on the impact that COVID-19 had caused which led to retailers taking their business online,” she said.
Moodley commented that data and sentimental analytics play a major role in this which has not been introduced into South Africa as yet. “My dissertation has evolved a framework that can extract social media data, formalise and clean this data, using machine learning techniques for sentiment analysis to assist retailers to determine how well their brand is performing in the marketplace,” she shared. Moodley emphasised that DUT’s ENVISION2030 strategy also helped her harness her research.
“I associate myself with accountability in which I look at it in a positive and negative way. It is so important for us as students to take accountability of our mistakes so we can learn from it to grow and improve.This is not only within our studies but also within our work environment,” she indicated.
Currently, Moodley is looking at enhancing her project management skill sets. She has indicated that she would like to do a project management certification and grow from there.
“I also want to enjoy what I have studied for which was to become a business analyst and my Master’s dissertation will assist me so much further on this because it is about data science and machine learning which I have noticed a lot of companies are now interested in,” she said happily.
Pictured: Thaneshni Moodley
Waheeda Peters
