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27 August 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Xolisa Mnukwa
Student Toolkit
The First Edition of the UFS Student Toolkit is now available on Blackboard.

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

UFS premieres new website with responsive design for mobile use
2017-10-30


A project of almost two years culminated in the launch of a fresh design for the official website of the UFS on 30 October 2017.
 
World-class website
Through international benchmarking, the overall user experience (UX) has been improved, as well as the searchability of the site, which will assist in channelling more traffic to the UFS website. The new web design is entirely responsive, which means that users of mobile devices such as tablets or smartphones get to view the site in a customised screen size for their particular device. Since more South African users are browsing the web on mobile devices, this responsiveness addresses a pressing need in the sector.

Improving overall user experience
The improved UX of the website also ensures that users spend more time on the page. One new feature, for instance, is an interactive digital map of each of our three campuses.

This extended project was a collaboration of the Enterprise Data and Content Management division of ICT Services and the Unit for Social Media and Website Content in the Department of Communication and Brand Management.

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