Gold medallist dedicates feat to older sister
Fiji National University’s College of Engineering Science and Technology gold medal winner, Salesh Kumar dedicated his feat to his older sister for her instrumental role in his four years of study. “My dad passed away when I was completing high school and my sister, Sheetal, pretty much took over the responsibility,” he said. “Everything I am today is for my family.”
The 23-year-old high achiever describes himself as ‘a very simple guy who is basically a farmer from Ba’ and admitted he was unsure of what to pursue following high school. “Truth be told I didn’t really know what I wanted to be, but at the end of the day I knew it had to be something technical – that’s what I was interested in,” Mr Salesh said.
“At the beginning I was just relaxing going through it. I never did it to get a gold medal or anything out of it or anything.
“I did it because I enjoy it and love it – see the thing is if you really actually enjoy or love what you do it’s never challenging.”
Mr Kumar is currently working as a site engineer on a development project in Denarau South. He said his immediate future involved working on the first phase of the project which would see around100 lots of land developed. The budding engineer ranks engineering alongside teaching as the two most important fields of work in Fiji today.
“Right now, look around us – we’re developing everything – huge amounts of roads and land development,” he said.
“Particularly kids who are involved in it [engineering], they definitely have a future and it’s a very rewarding future.”