University life

Slowly but surely my university life at UCT is getting started. Semester start here is something quite different from home, where we can sign up for classes online and have a time table ready before lectures start. To sign up for courses you have to approach the professor/ lecturer in charge of the course to get approved, but the academic staff are of course swamped with work and are not always very easy to get hold of. Times or venues are not set before the first lecture to make sure that everyone attending the course can fit it into their time table. On top of this you need to stand in long cues to get administrative matters like student cards and passwords sorted, so whenever I meet other exchange students they seem to be running around like headless chickens from office to office to find the right people to talk to. But hey, maybe that’s the way exchange students feel when they get to University of Oslo??

Even though the admin at UCT is not the very best the academic part of it seems really promising so far. I’ve joined a sociology course on public health issues to get some background information for my master thesis and both that and my information systems course seems interesting and challenging. The courses are quite a lot smaller than I am used to with only 6-7 students in each and they also seem more work intensive than back home with continuous assessment and no exams. I’ve been given a work space in an office with a few other master students where I have my own desk and computer plus a fridge, microwave oven and kettle. All kitted for those long hours of studying...

UCT’s unique location at the base of Table Mountain/ Devils Peak makes amazingly beautiful! I really enjoy strolling around campus looking at the nice buildings, the view of the city and the mountain. On saturday we (Espen, Kjetil- visiting from Oslo, some friends from UCT and myself) conqured Devils Peak, the mountain you can see behind UCT in the picture above. We will try to post some photos from the hike soon!