Bungee Jumping

Although I didn't bungee jump, heres a video of my friends jumping off the second tallest jump in the world!

Soccer at UCT

           A couple weeks ago I started soccer for the UCT women’s football team. Before trials I had heard from a study abroad friend that the team was not very talented, so I went into trials with a very open mind. On the first day around 50 girls showed up. For women’s football not being a popular sport I was very surprised that this many girls came to trials. However about 30% were wearing running shoes. I talked to some of these girls, just to be friendly, and most of them said that this was their first time playing soccer.

At the time I didn’t think much of it, but later I reflected on why so many girls did not play sports growing up especially because it is so common in the United States. I was talking to one of the men’s players and he told me that he didn’t play for a soccer team until he came to UCT. I was very shocked to find that a male did not have the opportunity to be on a soccer team until college. He told me the reason his high school did not allow them to have a soccer team is because they want all the attention on rugby. His school district was afraid that if there was a soccer league then many of the rugby players would play soccer. I was so amazed that his school had the jurisdiction to ban soccer like that.

If there were no men’s teams in high school then I cant imagine there be much opportunity for women to play. In fact even here at UCT women’s football is still limited. One day at practice we only had 3 balls. At first I was so baffled that a program would have such little equipment but then I remembered that women’s football is not a popular activity. It probably took a lot for them to even get these three balls and the bibs.

After the first team was created I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked playing with this group of girls. Their level of play is slower than I am used to, but it is still good enough that I enjoy it. The girls on the team of super nice and I believe that I can get along with anyone who plays soccer because it is an automatic bonder. Although this season has just stared I look forward to the new adventures this experience will bring.

Insights on School

This was the first week of school so I noticed many cultural and social differences between the UCT students and what I am used to. One of the biggest things I noticed was how different the concept of time is.  When it comes to a social meeting people do not have a strict schedule that they stick to. It has taken me some patience and time to understand that people are more laid back when it comes to social meetings. However, even though people don’t have a time-table for social meeting, I have learned that being on time for lectures and school meetings in very important. Initially I thought that a lot of people would come very late to lectures, also because UCT is a much larger school than I am used to, but I have noticed that only a few come late to class.

       Through students arriving to lectures on time and through my observations of class I understand that people take schooling very seriously in South Africa. Even though they may not stick to a specific schedule when it comes to social gathering, when it comes to education I feel that these students really want to learn. I can tell that these students really want to learn because just through listening to conversations or comments in class it seems like these students know a lot of information. However it is my understanding that students at UCT chose one field to study and that is the only field that they will study while at university.

      At UCT the students chose one subject to study and that is the only subject they study, and this is a little different than my university in California. Although I do have a major that I follow, most American universities require students to take many general education classes so that students are all little more well rounded. Originally I was taking physics with first years but I ended up dropping but hen I talked to some of these students I asked them about their curriculum and they told me they only take science courses. These students have chosen the course of science so they have focused on science courses like physics before so they already knew many of the answers making it too hard for me. Through my observations I think that South African students want to become more focused on a single subject and work only on that subject, while American students have a general field they want to follow as well as learn some about other subjects.

School

University of Cape Town Classes
   The third week of school has started and I'm just getting used to how the class system works. I am taking 3 classes; Human Biology, Health Psychology, and Intro to South Africa. My class sizes range from 60-250 students which is very different from Chapman. The lectures here are pretty standard where there professor uses power points. Except one of the harder parts is how fast they teach here and that there are mandatory tutorial. Also all the students seem very smart here. I think in high school they choose which field they want to study so they have been studying a subject intensely for a while. Also they don't really have homework. Most of our grade depends on the final test, like %50.