Inspired by her father’s strong interest in language, Priyashel Kumar has graduated from the University of Fiji with a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in English and Hindi.
Kumar, who is originally from Suva and has maternal and paternal links to Labasa, comes from a family of four and credits her father for guiding her towards her chosen path.
She says her family has been her biggest support throughout her journey.
She completed her studies from 2022 to 2025 and faced financial challenges as a private student. However, she says her father supported her financially, and she took it as a responsibility not to let his efforts go in vain.
To overcome these challenges, Kumar worked while studying, balancing full-time employment with full-time studies.
During her academic journey, she participated in quizzes and essay-writing competitions, wrote original poems that were later published, won literature awards, and achieved a GPA of 4.27.
Kumar says her dream of becoming an educator, having a degree and seeing a smile on her parents’ faces is what drove her every day towards this accomplishment.
She says she did this for herself as well, believing that people can only make others smile when they are happy themself.
She thanked her family, lecturers, and everyone who supported her, saying her journey would have been incomplete without UniFiji, which gave her the opportunity to pursue her goals.
Kumar is currently working while pursuing her Graduate Diploma in Teaching at UniFiji and aims to complete the programme with the same dedication.
Her goal is to become a lecturer, achieve financial stability, and ease her father’s responsibilities.
She also has a message for fellow graduands, urging them to thank themselves, as success would not have been possible without self-belief.
