This program spans five weeks, with the first week being entirely virtual from home so that students have ample time to resolve any end-of-semester logistics and start of summer term (e.g., moving out of residence hall or apartment) and to establish a foundational understanding of the courses and the context of South Africa. 

The second week of the program, the first in person, will be spent in Johannesburg, where we will immediately immerse ourselves in the local history and culture of South Africa. Johannesburg is the economic and industrial heartland of the African continent and has a deep history linked to mining and political and civic activism. We will travel to Pretoria, the executive capital of South Africa and the home of the largest contact university in South Africa. We will also engage with the University of the Witwatersrand, a prestigious and innovative institution known for its research, high academic standards, and commitment to social justice in Africa and beyond.

The program's third week will be spent traveling through the provinces of Free State, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, and Western Cape. This journey will include traveling south through Bloemfontein, the judicial capital of South Africa and JRR Tolkien’s birthplace. We will intimately experience the rural township in Colesberg, experience Addo Elephant National Park—the nation’s third-largest national park, relish in the biodiversity of the Garden Route in Knysna, whale watch in Hermanus, and finally we will dive with sharks and study the seas in Gansbaai. 

The fourth week of the program takes place in South Africa’s gorgeous wine country, at Stellenbosch University. Stellenbosch is among South Africa’s top three research institutes and students will hear from guest lecturers and tour local communities to gain firsthand knowledge of how technology, sustainability, and infrastructure merge in the rural and agricultural areas of the Western Cape. 

The fifth and final week of the program will be spent in Cape Town, where we will stay on campus at the University of Cape Town. UCT is one of the top-rated universities in the world, where researchers help to create African-based solutions to global problems. In Cape Town, students will observe penguin colonies on the southernmost tip of the continent, climb to new heights atop Table Mountain and tour Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner for 18 years before becoming South Africa’s first Black president.

There will be a two-day virtual debrief in the week following our return home.