University of Natal Reviews

Type of housing: On campus

Arranged by: Host university

If returning, I would choose: Apartment/House

Why? While the dorms were an interesting and educational experience, both culturally and personally, I enjoy being immersed in a community rather than cloistered on a campus.

Personal comments:
For anyone who is visiting South Africa for the first time I would highly recommend living on campus. There is a large and varied array of people with many different cultures and languages to meet, and living on campus also allows you to speak with and befriend individuals that you may not otherwise come into contact with. The dorms are in good shape with communal bathrooms and kitchens. There are only single occupant rooms (mine had a stunning view of the Indian Ocean and Durban proper), and while they are nicely equipped with a sink and a large closet, there is only one electrical outlet. To those used to extreme connectivity this may seem rather upsetting, but I never heard many complaints from either native students or other exchange students about this lack. If you like animals you'll be happy to occasionally find a cat, a monkey, or an hadeda ibis hanging out in your dorm room. Finally, if you're a vegetarian be prepared to share refrigerator and kitchen space with a lot of meat eaters; Zulus and most other African cultures, who compose the majority of on-campus students, tend to eat a lot of meat. Fortunately, the meat that is produced in South Africa is far better than what is produced in America, mainly because Halal rules about preparation and killing are strongly adhered to.

Describe host city: Students equally interact with the local and student community

Nightlife: Takes place mostly outside the university/student environment

Activities, Travel: Takes place both within and outside of the university/student environment

Personal comments:
Durban is very different from most American cities because of the extreme crime rates. It is difficult and unadvised to walk around much of the cityby yourself during the day. At night you should only move around by car. This was truly irritating for me since I am an avid cyclist. Fortunately, I was able to become best friends with a South African student who had a car, which made both traveling and hanging out in the city much easier. Taking a taxi is a good alternative as well, but it becomes costly unless you have a lot of passengers. Another answer to the trasnportation problem is to get some money together with other students and by a used car. A few people did this and were able to travel around the country every weekend and vacation. As for places to hang out/visit, I would recommend going to Beanbag Bohemia, which has amazing cuisine, good music, and a laidback atmosphere. If you're looking for something more lively there is the BAT Centre. It is renowned as a local arts and culture center with a yummy restaurant during the day. At night the place becomes a nightclub with different themes every day, the most entertaining and crazy being hip hop night. Not into hip hop? There are many clubs featuring different styles of techno, particularly drum and bass, psy trance, and house. One of the truly annoying problems with Durban that has become a sarcastic truism for many is that there is no good rock/alternative scene. During the day there are a multitude of fantastic sites to visit including the Japanese Gardens, the Durban Art Museum, the beautiful beaches, the aquarium, a water park, Victoria Street Market, shark dissections, and a lot more that I cannot remember at the moment. Finally, for entertainment both day and night you have to visit Gateway, the largest mall in the southern hemisphere. I know this may sound consumerist and rather lame but it is a fantastic place with good shopping, enormous movie theatres, an independent film theatre, performance space, bars and a skate park designed by Tony Hawk.

Course recommendations:
I understand that most people are required to choose their courses prior to traveling abroad. UKZN is not as organized as most American universities however, and most of the international students that I went with ended up completely revising their initial schedule. If you have the chance to do so ask local students what courses they enjoyed or what professors they found to be good. Just like at your home university networking is key to having the best experiences, both socially and academically.

Personal comments:
I had a strange experience academically while in Durban. I took three courses: one in anthropology, one in religious studies, and another on deejaying. The anthropology course was very poor and was pretty much useless except as a good situation for meeting and speaking with local students. The religious studies course was fun and took a distinctly South African perspective on the many religions of the country, including African Traditional Religions, which I had never had the chance to learn about before. Finally, the deejaying course was lekker (Afrikaans for cool or sweet). I now know how to put together deejaying equipment as well as basic deejaying skills. Probably the best part of the class (which is one of only two such courses in the world) is that half of the final requires you to deejay at one of the best and more upscale clubs in Durban. Overall however, I would say that academics at UKZN are not nearly as strenuous as in the US, but they do provide a unique point of view that cannot be found anywhere else.

Language of instruction: English

Main source of funding:
Other

Other sources of funding:
Family
Scholarships

Work opportunities:
I worked, but it was illegal/cash in hand work

Personal spending habits:
Well, because the exchange rate is six Rand to the dollar is is understandably much cheaper to do most things in South Africa. Britons have an especially easy time in South Africa because of the Pound/Rand ratio. Oddly enough though, cell phones are more costly in South Africa (at least for me, who usually pays about $40/mo. for a phone) because there are very few phone plans. Most companies simply have kiosks where you can purchase minutes and put them on your phone. The minutes are not cheap however, and it is necessary to have at least ten or twenty minutes at all times for safety reasons if you plan on leaving campus.

Telephone: was more expensive than at home.

Food, Travel, Nightlife, Overall, Housing: was less expensive than at home.

I wish I had known...
Not really, although some of the things that I have discussed in earlier sections would have been nice to know before going.

In my opinion:
Everybody loved it, you will too!