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UFS launches its first-ever Student Toolkit

27 August 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Xolisa Mnukwa

Download the toolkit here

A common question first-time entering first-year students often ask themselves when they come to university, is: ‘How will I deal with the pressure?’

The University of the Free State (UFS) Department of Student Counselling and Development (SCD) – with the vision to promote, enable, and optimise students’ self-direction – has launched the first edition of the Student Toolkit on Friday, 23 August 2019.

The toolkit, which is now available on Blackboard, is intended to assist students in dealing and coping with challenges they face in their personal lives during their period of study at the UFS.

Students will be exposed to a variety of topics, pressing issues, and phenomena that they will encounter on a daily basis in their lives, such as academic and personal challenges, time management, procrastination, goal setting, anxiety, effective studying, stress management, mindful meditation, self-love, loneliness, relationships, sexual orientation, family frustrations, overthinking, death, and suicide.

Present at the launch was the UFS Vice-Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Community Engagement, Prof Puleng LenkaBula; the UFS Dean of Student Affairs, Mr Pura Mgolombane; the UFS Director for Student Counselling and Development, Melissa Barnaschone; Counselling Psychologist and compiler of the UFS Student Toolkit: Lize van den Bergh.

In addition, BCom Marketing honours student and poet, Thuthukani Ndlovu, Chief Executive Officer and founder of Next Chapter, Tshepang Mahlatsi, three students who have benefitted from SDC services, delegates from the department, and other affiliated students were all in attendance.

For more information about the Student Toolkit, contact the Department of Student Counselling and Development at scd@ufs.ac.za or call +27 51 401 2853.

News Archive

Mpofu-Walsh inspires with music, word, and wisdom

2017-08-22

Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh shared with the audience the
creative process of writing a song at the 2017
TEDxUFS conference.
Photo: Voxomnia

“Sometimes it’s the parts of us that give us the most agony, the parts of us that we think we need to change to conform to other people’s expectations, which are actually the gateways which allow us to make an impact in the world.”

This encouragement from Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh was one of the highlights of the 2017 TEDxUFS conference. According to the author, musician, and activist, we should embrace every part of ourselves. We should understand that the way in which each of us can change the world, is by becoming one with all the different parts of us which people think can’t come together.

Audience hears project for first time

For the first time ever, Sizwe shared material from his project Democracy and delusionwith an audience at the 4th annual TEDxUFS conference in the Odeion Theatre at the University of the Free State on 5 August 2017. Other speakers included the likes of Murendeni Mafumo, founder of Gentle Giant, and Elijah Djan, CEO and inventor of Nubrix.

The event also included TEDx videos, breath-taking performances, and cutting-edge technological exhibitions. The theme was Prism of Possibilities.

Launching a book and album together

Sizwe shared how he, while studying at the University of Oxford, embarked on an ambitious project where he combined his passion for academics and music: To release a book and album about the same things at the same time.

The project is a reflection of the political landscape in South Africa. Sizwe showed how he created a song about student protests by putting different layers of music together.

“The only way to do something that will leave you truly remembered is to do something different. It is to take all of yourself and pour it into the creative pursuit that you produce.”

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