News in bytes

UCT students travel to China for first-hand Chinese lessons | Andrew Bramley says women are better at making career choices than men | ICTS helps Chicago students make contact with home base | SA & American learners take a lead

In June, 37 UCT students travelled to Guangzhou, China, for the university's first Chinese language summer camp. The group - pictured here in Tiananmen Square - included six international students. The camp is the first marquee event since UCT rolled out a credit-bearing course in Initial Mandarin in February this year. The trip was made available with substantial help from the Chinese Language Office International (Hanban), the headquarters for the nearly 700 international Confucius Institutes - including the one at UCT - and Confucius Classrooms it oversees.

Women are smarter than men when it comes to career choices, according to career consultant Andrew Bramley. Delivering a talk, Career Transitions - A practical approach to career change and job hunting in South Africa, at the latest Alumni Leadership Forum of the Development and Alumni Department on 20 July, Bramley noted that women often make good career decisions in their 20s and early 30s, while men often resolve their careers when nearing their 40s. However, there are people in their 50s who are changing their careers to things that give them more satisfaction. "We see people in the second half of their lives do incredible things with their careers than when they were in their 30s," Bramley noted.

Information & Communications Technology Services (ICTS) recently ran a video conference, from its Main Road headquarters, for a group of biomedical engineering students from Chicago's Northwestern University who are currently doing research at UCT. Over the session, the students presented their latest findings and demonstrated their medical devices to reviewers back in Chicago. According to Jean Poluta, the international collaboration facilitator of UCT's HealthCare Technology Management (HTC) programme, Jean Poluta, the arrangement certainly impressed the professors in Chicago. More information about video conferencing is published on the ICTS website under |Phone and Fax | Video conferencing.

UCT's International Academic Programmes Office (IAPO) and Careers Service recently played host to 65 American and South African school learners on the LEAD Global Institute. This is an extension of the Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) programme in the US, an initiative that sets out to help learners make better career choices. Over the 10-day gathering at UCT, the learners enjoyed a potted but intensive introduction to careers opportunities in commerce, the health sciences and engineering, both in South Africa and the US.