First steps on a new road: welcome to new Commerce students and their parents, 2014

1. First steps on a new road: welcome to new Commerce students and their parents, 2014 Professor Don Ross Dean

2. University life: sweet and scary • To study in a good university is to live in and be re-shaped by one of the basic institutional pillars of value in the world. • For most who attend, the experience is sweet: they are young, their future is open, and they get to spend most of their time focused on it. • For most the experience is also frightening, because choices will be made that will have life-long consequences. • What combination could be more piquant? Every year I envy them!

3. The Commerce structure allows for patience All Commerce students start with the same set of courses (whether on 3 or 4 year degree plans). Thus no one needs to make a decision with career-path implications while they’re still finding their feet.

4. A range of paths • Accounting: a well-laid track • Economics: a path to social leadership and global citizenship; a limitless range of niche careers • Information systems: a chance to steal a march on a market that’s still waking back up • Finance: still the most direct entre to the big bucks • Marketing: the glamorous side of business • Organizational psychology: especially highly demanded in SA, with its large companies and highly regulated labour market • Actuarial science: according to polls, the world’s most satisfied professionals

5. 2 degrees in which one can follow any of the preceding paths • Bachelor of Commerce: 3 years of study, with concentration on a single major plus foundation courses. • Bachelor of Business Science: 4 years of study, with the same majors and foundation courses as above, but also with a fourth year at NQF level 8 focused on business strategy. A student can begin in the B.Com. then switch into the B.Bus.Sci. after second year; other students transfer in the opposite direction.

6. Entrance Requirements Redress Category • Mainstream BCom/BBusSc degrees: 435 points, Maths (60%), English (HL 50%) or (FAL 60%) • Mainstream Actuarial Science: 475 points, Maths (80%), English (HL 60%) or (FAL 80% + Proficient in AL+QL NBT) • EDU Bcom/BbusSc degrees: 430 points, Maths (60%), English (HL 50%) or (FAL 60%) • EDU Actuarial Science: 475 points, Maths (80%), English (HL 50%) or (FAL 60%) • NBT Requirements: • Mainstream • AL (Upper Intermediate - 51) • QL (upper Intermediate – 54) • Maths (must be written) • EDU • AL (Intermediate - 38) • QL (Intermediate – 38) • Maths (must be written) Open Category Mainstream Bcom/BbusSc degrees: 445 points, Maths (60%), English (HL 50%) or (FAL 60%) Mainstream Actuarial Science: 480 points, Maths (80%), English (HL 60%) or (FAL 80% + Proficient in AL+QL NBT)

7. Developing a sense of professional responsibility You hear us say that our students also learn “values”. That doesn’t (mainly) refer to explicit teaching of personal ethics, in the sense of moral do’s and don’t’s. It refers mainly to gaining appreciation of the fact that each cohort of UCT students is being sculpted – and self-sculpted – as the main bearers of responsibility for the future of SA. The 2013 incoming student is about to form strong ties in the network of people with whom they’ll one day lead the country.

8. Education: for the student’s sake and the community’s All countries, especially developing ones, urgently need well educated workers. So in getting a good degree, a UCT Commerce student isn’t just laying a basis for his or her own future. The student is also contributing to a critical national asset.

9. A research-led university UCT is the only African university in the global top 200. (No other is in the global top 400.) This is mainly because of its research output. Thus the prestige of the degree rests crucially on our research. This also enables us to attract leading international academics. Research thus isn’t something you should think of as distracting us from our teaching responsibilities. It is central to the value we add across the board.

10. We need community support The government doesn’t provide us with extra resources to be a word-class university. Without private and corporate donations we won’t be able to maintain our status indefinitely.

11. We urgently want our students to succeed We provide support services in recognition that students need more than lectures and tutorials. These include opportunities for cultivating leadership and social responsibility. They also include counseling and advice for handling personal and social strain. I especially want to emphasize support for better writing and communication. More use of these services by more students is probably the single change in behaviour that would make the biggest difference to both students’ marks and to their ability to sell themselves persuasively to the market after graduation.

12. It’s a big faculty … … and so it’s a bureaucracy, with all that implies. Sometimes rules and procedures will seem mindless, heartless and rigid – partly because we must be consistent, and partly because there are limits on how much information we can process quickly. So please try to remember that we do care about individuals and their success, and it’s easiest for us to show that if people are patient and calm when they need help. In turn, students and parents have a right to be taken seriously and treated as partners in building SA’s human and social capital.

13. Commerce Families To help parents and other family members who want a window into the Commerce student’s environment, please follow Commerce Familieson Facebook and Twitter. This has some fun content, some thoughtful content – and also reminders and explanations of deadlines and rules, which will enable you, from far, to help your absent-minded progeny from missing or forgetting about something important. Go to the Faculty website, http://www.commerce.uct.ac.za/ and look for the “follow us” tab near the top of the page; then click on the Facebook, Twitter and Flickr icons and you will be plugged into Commerce Families.

14. Determined work and fun A university experience that doesn’t include lots of both is a precious opportunity wasted. Finding a good balance is an art that most students will learn. That will be the key to their one day looking on with envy, like you do today, at their own sons and daughters starting down this path.