*Lianke Potgieter is a second-year MBChB student and also one of the eager student tour guides that regularly take guests to our campus on enriching tours of our grounds and facilities. Read her first-hand account of a day in the life of Tygerberg Campus tour guide.
“Welcome to Stellenbosch 万博体育官网's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Since our establishment in 1956…"
As a tour guide on Tygerberg Campus, no day is ever exactly the same, and neither are the tours we lead, though they all begin with these all too familiar words.
I could be meeting the rector in the Faculty Library or hunting down a lost German guest in Tygerberg Hospital. I could be guiding a group of foreign visitors, a few fresh-faced first years, curious parents, fellow Tygermaties student leaders, or bright-eyed high school students dreaming of a future in healthcare.
Every day is a new adventure!
As the youngest of the eight students selected as tour guides, I got to learn a lot, not only from my fellow tour guides and Mrs Florence De Vries, who helped us all find our feet, but also from the various people I got the opportunity to meet and engage with.
I still remember the first tour I gave: it was Welcoming Week, 1 February 2023, and I was so excited for my first tour – nervous, scared I would forget what I had to say, anxious about making a mess of things – but excited to showcase our beautiful campus to the first-year newcomers.
We met on the lawn in front of Hippokrates Residence - the eight of us in our white T-shirts, maroon caps, and tour guide lanyards, and dozens of first-year students - for what would be the first of three tours I led that week.
We gathered them all together, split into smaller groups, and set off!
We went all the way around campus – from the Clinical Building up to the 5th floor skills lab, from the TSS to the BMRI. We even showed them the sport fields and posed for a group photo!
Jokes were made, and laughs were shared. Smiles could be seen all around. All in all, I would say we had great fun.
From this tour I made friends and connections that might have otherwise eluded me.
Since that day, I have led at least a dozen more tours, all unique and special in their own way, but you never forget your first.
Being a tour guide on Tygerberg Campus truly is a unique and amazing experience – even if I still get winded when answering questions while moving from one stop on our tour to the next.
To end off, as we tell all our guests – 'Thank you for joining me on this brief campus tour' – or in this case, a day in the life of a tour guide on Tygerberg Campus.
Whether you're a newcomer wondering what our campus is all about, an alumnus coming back to see how much our campus has grown, or just a concerned parent wondering where exactly you are sending your child to for the next few years of their life, Tygerberg Campus – and its tour guides – welcomes you.
Come rain or shine, the Tygerberg Campus tour guides are here to show you the way, and we always do it with a smile! ?
Caption: Lianke Potgieter (third from left) with the the group of Tygerberg Campus tour guides.?
