Dean of Students, Dr Vivian De Klerk is very excited to meet the new intake of first year students this year. It all started this week where 500 leadership students (sub-wardens and house committee members) attended leadership camps and prepared the residences for the students, who will arrive and settle in over this weekend (5 - 6 February).
This year there are three new residences, temporarily named Hilltop 1, 2 and 3, where 261 of the 1500 first years will be comfortably accommodated.
Monday 7 February is ‘Parent’s Day’ when both students and their parents get to soak up a range of orientation activities, career talks and campus tours. The morning session, designed for parents specifically, takes place at the 1820 Settlers Monument, and gives them the opportunity to glean all the information they need, including faculty-specific sessions with the Deans. At five o’ clock the Vice Chancellor, Dr Saleem Badat delivers his famous thought-provoking, humorous speech to students and parents, rounded off with a cocktail party on the Drostdy lawns in the evening. Says Dr De Klerk: ”Then, we urge the parents to leave, so their children can find their feet by themselves.”
The next four days are spent acquainting themselves with the town and campus. Included in this is what Dr De Klerk describes as a “huge plenary session” at the Monument, with a live feed to the Thomas Pringle Hall. Chaired by the Dean of Students, everything is covered - from sports to discipline to where the Counselling Centre is located. Every day there are lectures about each subject on offer, divided into degree categories such as Humanities and Sciences so that the sessions don’t clash. Once the students’ minds are made up about which subjects to take, formal curriculum approval takes place on the last day of O-week.
After hours, each new student participates in four workshops, two of which are dramatic productions. The first is the hugely popular The Amazing (Other) Show staged by the Drama Department. The show takes a screamingly funny, no-holds-barred look at various social issues such as alcohol abuse, homophobia, sexism and racism.
The second production, entitled Risky Business, has been created by Ubom! East Cape Drama Company and is a collaboration with the Students HIV/AIDS Resistance Campaign (Sharc) that tackles sex and HIV/AIDS. The main message here is that when it comes to Sexually Transmitted Diseases - it’s all about the choices you make. Both include an interactive discussion with the audience afterwards.
The third evening workshop focuses on academic life and how to be a successful student. Study techniques and habits are explored, with some sound advice from senior academics. The last workshop is called Rhodes life - sex, drugs and DPs. The workshops are repeated every evening for four days to give all new students the opportunity to participate.
And so begins the (Rhodes) experience of a lifetime.
Students Guide to Orientation Week click
SRC O-Week programme click here