From the deepest, darkest depths of your imagination, summon Africa. Think of lions and elephants, venereal disease and dictators, Simba and Robert Mugabe, of Toto, machetes and corruption. As a study abroad student at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, my Facebook wall is littered with pleas to not get shot or get AIDS, but return with a fistful of Ivory and Blood Diamonds. And believe me, the moment I see Leonardo hustling rocks at a street corner, I will make the proper enquiries.
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The University of Cape Town Accommodations
My sophomore year dorm room at Wash U had a 38″ high-definition TV, two refrigerators, unlimited high-speed internet, a comfortable couch, and an Xbox 360. I don’t mean to brag, but my flat at the University of Cape Town — where I am spending my fall semester — has a microwave. All of the other Americans living in the Leisbeeck Gardens residence are envious, but we all have our little indulgences. Some of them even have showers; I have no sympathy.
Social Life at the University of Cape Town
In retrospect, I still think my pre-departure expectations were reasonable. I was going to Cape Town for a semester, to make lots of African friends, to have the time of my life, and to reconsider my life place in this world. Maybe I should have learned something from my freshman year at Washington University in Saint Louis about thwarted expectations, but there it was: a view of me on some gorgeous beach I’d seen on some Google image search, speaking Xhosa, Afrikkans, and English interchangeably with a posse of beautiful, multiracial friends.
The University of Cape Town’s Academic Program
A typical weekday as a semester study abroad student at the University of Cape Town begins over an hour before class. No matter that at Washington University in St. Louis, I could roll out of bed at a quarter till with time to spare — the walk to class in Cape Town is not to be missed.