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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

Distinguished Kovsie medical student bestowed with Abe Bailey Bursary
2013-10-14

14 October 2013

Residence head, SRC member, Golden Key International Honour Society member and now: Abe Bailey scholar as well. These are some of the achievements and leadership titles that Michael van Niekerk, a fourth-year MBChB student at our university, has under his belt.

One of 18 South Africans countrywide, Van Niekerk is to visit institutions in England and Scotland as a recipient of the prestigious Abe Bailey Travel Bursary for 2013. The scholarship acknowledges excellence in academics, leadership and community service and is awarded annually to third-year students and/or junior lecturers not older than 25 years of age.

The recipients of the 2013 Abe Bailey scholarship leave for Cape Town on 20 November 2013 to attend a two-day orientation process. Following this, they will then travel to London and Edinburgh, where they will visit universities, as well as places of interest such as London’s House of Lords.

Van Niekerk, who recently visited the USA as part of the Golden Key International Honour Society’s International Scholar Laureate programme, says it is an incredible honour to be this year’s Abe Bailey recipient for the UFS. "I am very blessed to not only excel in the medical field, but also in leadership and other aspects and I believe that this is absolutely grace from Above. I believe that this is an opportunity and a step to a better future. I don’t believe in being average and believe that this is an opportunity to prove myself and achieve more."

This Kovsie student says he has great plans for the future. "If it is God’s will, I would very much like to specialise in neurosurgery, cardiothoracic surgery or trauma surgery. I would like to be part of the Rhodes Scholarship and would strive to reach it."

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