During the next couple of years you will fall in love and get your heart broken, make mistakes and learn from them, operate on caffeine and plan your social calendar around semester tests and exams. At the end of it all you will be ready to enter the real world, the one you were warned about by your parents, the world where you can only survive if you have an education. What they do not tell you is that the real knowledge isn’t just acquired in the lecture halls of UP. It is in your everyday dealings with the people at UP. My advice is to get involved, be it Perdeby, TuksFM, Rag or Stuku, societies, student politics or day houses. If you aren’t involved you will never really experience student life.
Even though the three to five years you spend at university will be the best of your life, it is important to remember that South Africa is in dire need of responsible leadership. The Department of Student Affairs (DSA) has been hard at work this last year structuring a leadership curriculum which aims to develop leadership skills among students. The aim of this program is to deliver a well-rounded graduate with leadership qualities. Should you become involved in one of the activities I mentioned above, you will be fortunate enough to take part in the leadership development of DSA.
You are a select minority of the country`s population who is afforded a tertiary education. Use this opportunity to become the leaders of tomorrow, the leaders that this country is so desperately in need of.
Carel Willemse
Editor-in-Chief
