Opening the ivy-covered doors

In their thousands the learners descended on UCT's leafy Upper Campus for the Annual Open Day on 14 April, keen on learning as much as they could about the university.

Legal eagles: Prof PJ Schwikkard, dean of the Faculty of Law, talks about getting into law studies at UCT.	Flower power: (Starting second from left) Cebisa Nkomo and Rachel Mukendi from Windermere Secondary and Karabo Mara from the Curro Langebaan Private School get a lesson in botany from an orientation assistant.

The hopefuls soaked up a wealth of information about the university from the screenings, campus and library tours and the dozens of stalls set out by faculties and departments. Some had come just to check out what the campus has to offer; others knew exactly what they wanted.

Christoff Gericke, a grade-11 learner at Drostdy High Technical School in Worcester, said that the Open Day literally "opened the UCT world" to him, because, "where I live, people don't believe in going to UCT, more like Stellenbosch and so on". But, he said, one thing turned his head westward. "It's because I found out it's the best university in Africa," he smiled.

Chelton van Wyk and Faith Leburu, students at the Raymond Ackerman Academy, want to study at UCT to realise their plans of becoming entrepreneurs. They knew exactly why they'd come to the Open Day.

"Information. Details. I don't want to leave here empty-handed, without getting the information I want," said van Wyk.

The day certainly got Leburu enthused. "I'm going to ask questions to find out everything I need to know to come study here," she declared.

Visit the Open Day photo album on Flickr.

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