When venturing off to university, images of graceful butterflies emerging from cocoons are often used to describe, at times, the drastic transition.
As a young naïve girl arriving in a strange town with strange people, my first year at Rhodes University certainly fitted such an image. I felt that I had not only grown my wings but I began to grow into my own person. However, as hindsight is often the best sight, this perception of myself was misguided and I can now confidently say that the girl at the end of her first year was perhaps more cocooned and naïve then she’d hoped to be.

Desperate students, terrified of being financially excluded, took to campus to protest their concerns.

The second year brought about a change in the Rhodes “loving and care-free” environment. Tensions between people rose as terms such as “white privilege” and ” black lives matter” scattered themselves onto the Rhodes Facebook group. Soon the animosity, rearing its ugly head, soon slipped off social media and became evident in our daily campus lives. Desperate students, terrified of being financially excluded, took to campus to protest their concerns. Thus the fees-must-fall era arrived and continues to live on.
I was then forcibly removed from my highly comfortable cocoon to face the harsh realities of my fellow students, some who did not return the next year due to financial restraints, others who can’t afford the recommended textbooks and some that could not even afford a bus ticket home for the holidays.
Students’ dreams, hopes and future prospects were being shattered around me and the desperation to stay and graduate was almost tangible in the air.

My second and third year at varsity was the most terrifying and yet most enlightening years of my life.
I was not only being taught in my lectures and seminars but I was acquiring handy life skills during frequent police and student clashes, often involving innocent bystanders. During these occurrences I quickly learned how to treat students who have been pepper sprayed – milk works best, how to react when a stun grenade has been thrown, as well running in the opposite direction to which the rubber bullets are coming from.
The stress of it all definitely took its toll.
There were times where it all seemed too much and dropping out was the only option, and yet I am so grateful that I completed the year. My second and third year at varsity was the most terrifying and yet most enlightening years of my life.
The fees-must-fall protest opened my eyes to the peoples struggles around me as well as the other troubles we, as South Africans, have to face. It was definitely not the university experience that I had hoped for but it was certainly one that I needed to change my sheltered perspective.