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Embark on your Gateway to an exciting Kovsie life

23 January 2020 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa

Enrich your first University of the Free State (UFS) experiences with the annual Gateway first-year’s college. Form long-lasting friendships and memories with your fellow freshmen and gear up for a vibrant academic career at the UFS.

Gateway comprises an exciting series of student-life and learning experiences that are intended to introduce and acquaint students with their respective Kovsie campuses and overall UFS campus life.

The 2020 Gateway programme inducts first-year students into academic faculty life in order to help them adjust and settle into the university environment. It also aims to instil effective skills in them to thrive academically, and to develop into well-rounded, globally competitive graduates.

Want to experience Gateway? Here’s how

The Gateway Orientation programme on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus is conducted according to student colleges. First-year students who do not belong to an on-campus or day residence on the Bfn Campus, are assigned to a college in Exam Room 3 during their registration. This enables them to follow and be part of the series of events according to the colleges they are assigned to.

Get to know your UFS campus

UFS Campus Tours no longer form part of the Gateway Programme; however, Gateway mentors assigned to specific colleges are available for students to get in touch with, in order to arrange tours of the Bloemfontein Campus. Day-residence students and students residing on campus are paired with P3 mentors, who have been placed in their respective residences to facilitate campus tours for them.

KovsiesACTUP Performing Arts Competition

The UFS Arts, Culture and Dialogue office has partnered with the Kovsie ACT office for the 2020 Gateway programme, introducing the KovsiesACTUP Performing Arts Competition for all prospective and current students of the UFS. It is geared towards engaging students and enhancing the general social atmosphere on the Bloemfontein Campus during registration.

The competition comprises various categories, including dancing, singing, poetry, DJing, musical bands, and rap. The winner from each category will walk away with R1 500 in cash. The competition finale will be held at the RAG farm on 27 January 2020 at 14:00.

For more information on how to get involved with the Arts, Culture and Dialogue Office, students can visit the Callie Human Centre on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus. The office has set up a performance stage, where fellow Kovsies associated with the office are entertaining prospective students and parents who are waiting to register.

For enquiries about Gateway on each campus, see the details below:

Bloemfontein Campus: +27 51 401 9876 or email gateway@ufs.ac.za
Qwaqwa Campus: Dulcie Malimabe, +27 58 718 5041; malimabeDP@ufs.ac.za
South Campus: Tshego Setilo, +27 51 505 1362; SetiloT@ufs.ac.za

Visit the UFS Gateway page for more information on the 2020 programme and how you can get involved.

News Archive

Three minutes for research

2015-09-07

When you have only three minutes in which to explain an 80 000-word thesis, every second counts. This is what researchers from across the country realised during the first national round of South Africa’s Three-minute thesis competition.

The University of the Free State (UFS) Postgraduate School hosted this international competition on the Bloemfontein Campus, where master’s and doctoral students from 12 universities participated. During the competition, each researcher had to give a presentation on his/her research within three minutes.

Dr Henriette van den Berg, Director of the UFS’s Postgraduate School, and presenter of the two-day competition, said the competition is the ideal platform to teach researchers how to become effective research communicators.

“It is important that researchers should learn to communicate the essence of their research to audiences that aren’t necessarily specialists in the field. They should also be able to emphasise how their research contributes to the success and well-being of communities. Researchers often have to explain to persons who aren’t specialists in their specific research area the reasons why it is important to fund the research, for example, or during a work interview. They should be able to convey the essence of their research effectively in a very short time.”

The 3MT competition, which originated at the University of Queensland in Australia, has in 2010 developed into an international trend since its inception. Currently, the 3MT is presented in Australia, the USA, and the UK.

For the competition, participants are given just three minutes to explain their research. In this time, they have to explain the problem and the methodology, as well as why this research is important. Participants are allowed to make use of only one piece of static imaging material for support.

A panel of judges from the participating universities were selected to assess each presentation, based on how well participants expressed themselves in such a short time, and on their choice of imagery.

Gavin Robinson from the University of Johannesburg, Cameron McIntosh, and Ingrid Alleman, both from the UFS, were the respective winners in the categories for doctoral and master’s students.

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