We are delighted – and immensely proud – at the announcement that Julia Hampton has been nominated as the Diocesan College Rhodes Scholar elect for 2018.
Julia was a student at Herschel for all of her schooling and matriculated in 2014. She was the Preparatory Dux Scholar in her Grade 7 year, matriculated with nine distinctions for the National Senior Certificate and was the Western Cape’s top candidate for English Home Language and on the Premier of the Western Cape’s Matric Merit List for overall academic achievement. At school she participated in swimming, netball and was the First Team Water Polo Captain, earning her Provincial Colours for three years in a row. Julia was a significant leader in the school. Her strong organisational and leadership skills made her a natural choice for Prefectship in her final year. Moreover, Julia was led the newly established Carter House in its inaugural year at Herschel and passionately built House spirit and loyalty through her enthusiastic and incisive leadership.
Having engaged enthusiastically in multiple dimensions of University of Cape Town (UCT) life and beyond, in April 2018 Julia was awarded a Bachelor of Arts Degree majoring in English Language & Literature, Economics and Economic History, with distinction in all three of these areas. She is currently reading for the BCom Honours in Economics at UCT.
Julia wishes to undertake the MPhil in Development Studies at Oxford. From this she hopes to become better equipped to unleash the energy and passion of South African communities: integrating people from all socioeconomic backgrounds at the centre of South Africa’s economy and at the centre of development discourse more broadly. She currently leads the Non-Profit/Public Benefit Organisation, Phaphama Small Enterprise Development Initiative, which links student consultants from UCT to business owners in Khayelitsha and Philippi. For recreation Julia socialises with family and friends, loves reading, painting and writing and derives great meaning from a creative engagement with the people and nature around her.
A very excited Julia said: “I am positively ecstatic to have the opportunity to study an MPhil in Development Studies at Oxford. I hope to be rigorously challenged, to have my paradigms imploded and to build on my learning of how I can promote inclusive, personhood-orientated development in South Africa. I am so deeply appreciative of the dynamic education- spanning academia, sports, culture and servant leadership- that Herschel gave me. I look back on my experience there with joy and gratitude.”
We congratulate Julia on this extraordinary achievement and extend the congratulations to her parents, Neil and Antoinette .