tutor

lecturer

research assistant

teaching assistant

postdoctoral fellow

University of Cape Town

I had the pleasure of working as a tutor at the University of Cape Town, and I must say it was an incredible experience. The university provided a great working environment, where I felt supported and valued as a member of the tutoring staff.

The department I worked in was truly exceptional in its commitment to supporting the tutors. The staff went above and beyond to ensure that we had the resources, guidance, and training needed to excel in our roles. Their dedication to our professional development was evident, and it created a nurturing atmosphere where I felt encouraged to grow and improve as an educator.

Moreover, the University of Cape Town itself is a renowned institution with a vibrant academic community. Interacting with students from diverse backgrounds and witnessing their intellectual growth was both inspiring and rewarding. The energy on campus was contagious, fostering a stimulating environment that fueled my passion for teaching.

While it is worth mentioning that the pay for tutoring positions at the university was on the lower side, I still believe that the overall experience made it a great place to work. The intrinsic rewards, such as the satisfaction of seeing students succeed and the opportunity to contribute to their educational journey, outweighed any monetary considerations.

In conclusion, my time as a tutor at the University of Cape Town was truly remarkable. The supportive department, combined with the vibrant academic community, made it a delightful place to work. Despite the lower pay, the rewarding experiences and personal growth I gained from working with talented students and dedicated colleagues made it all worthwhile. I would highly recommend this institution to anyone seeking a fulfilling and enriching work experience in the field of education.

I have been based in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Cape since 2007 as a clinical research officer. I am a qualified chemical engineer (UCT 1998) and medical doctor (UCT 2004). While at UCT, I have developed skills in several database and statistical packages. I also registered for a PhD in Clinical Pharmacology in 2010, and will be submitting my thesis later this year. 

My research has largely focused to cost and outcomes in patients with HIV in the public and public sectors in Southern Africa. I have worked closely with Aid for AIDS for several years now to improve their cost and outcome analyses. I have also worked with other private and public programs, including Medecins Sans Frontieres, Donald’s Wood Foundation, Aurum Healthcare, and Broadreach Healthcare, in a similar capacity. I have published several papers and presented my research at international and local conferences.

I prefer to work in a team therefore have focused on expanding my collaborations this year.  I current support five research projects: three with medical colleagues, one with a pharmacist, and one with an actuary. I provide technical (database and statistical analyses) and medical input on these studies. The topics relate to morbidity and morbidity associated with HIV and other chronic diseases. More specifically, the actuary and I are currently preparing an insurance-related analysis, which has been provisionally accepted for an oral presentation at the 30th International Congress of Actuaries in 2014. 

My post-graduate studies have been supported by a number of international grants.

My Job at the University of Cape Town was a Dining Hall Monitor.
During my stay at one of the residences in UCT I applied for the position of Dining Hall Monitor because I needed money for some part time work. My Job consisted of making sure that the correct people can enter the dining hall for the meal time. I was also in charge of reporting to the Supervisor how many people ate and I was in charge of Cash Vouchers for those students who were not able to eat during the specified meal times as a result of academic commitments. 

I learned how to work under pressure, as well as keep a tight record, make sure that those cash vouchers were all accounted for.

The management was the catering supervisors which were outsourced by UCT. They were very nice, and understanding that we were students, and had other commitments.

Work Place culture was great as it was with all my friends from my residence(dormitory) that were also employed in the dining Hall as a Dining Hall Monitor.

The Hardest Part of the Job was definitely not allowing people to eat when they miss the cut-off time. When the meal time is over, the manager does the count of how many people had ate during that time, thereafter, the cards(tickets) are packed back in their specific slots. When a student/staff member is late, they cannot eat because the count has already been done.

The most enjoyable part of the job would have to be during the lunch shifts. Because most students were at campus, very few students used to eat in the res dining hall, so the shift entailed sitting behind a quiet desk and chatting with friends.

There are days your day starts out relaxed with no pressure, then there are days your day or week could become extremely fast-paced and stressful depending on what is required from you. The environment most times can be fun and optimistic, but when it comes to crunch time, meaning all hands on deck there could be a bit of nastiness, but one does not take it personally because deadlines have to be met. We talk about it later and move on from it. At times the hardest part is trying to please everyone by pushing out their requests simultaneously, but that cannot always happen and some co-workers become agitated by it because some of them forward their requests at the last minute. I will say this, some managers have or little experience in dealing with their subordinates. Some managers are not consistent in their disciplinary methods and in this regard they become biased by showing favouritism instead of being diplomatic. This in turn causes friction amongst co-workers which could make your working environment unpleasant. Therefore I re-iterate that some managers need to go on a managers training cause or a refresher one. I would also recommend that a manager's superior do monthly or quarterly inquiries from their subordinates to find out how the manager of that specific unit, department or cluster performs in his/her duties. I believe providing incentives to staff as an added bonus, it boosts the staff members morale and your staff members and will become more productive and a happy one at that. 

A typical day at work was, multi tasking each day, but it was fun for me, because it was interacting with a diversity of people, which included, the tea lady, students and lecturers from different countries, professors, doctors, surgeons, admin staff, heads of departments, and liaising with various other departments in hospitals, universities and schools.

I had to ensure that all deadlines were met, otherwise students were not able to graduate, that meant I had to have good management skills, to be able to delegate as well to ensure that  things got done on time.

 I learned to take it one day at a time, but  most of al,l I learned to be proactive most of the time to meet my goals. I also learned never to say no, to learning new things, and always be supportive.

The hardest part of the job was having to photocopy the question  papers for all students from 1st year-4th year and all question and answer papers for all lecturers, besides all other functions for the day. Secondly having to deal with students who failed their exams, co workers that's not supportive.

The most enjoyable part was when students graduate, and the term has ended. everyone is happy. The  second most enjoyable part was filing away everything from the past year, and moving on, and starting all over again. 
I liked working with various clients.

Day starts off  by sorting emails in order of high, flag urgent,delete junk mail and sort queries into query files.Processing of purchase orders as per emails or walk ins.Everyday there are new challenges as we have to deal with people from different departments,characters and needs.The workplace is very friendly environment as there are constantly people coming in and out to bring in documents or request 
information.You get to meet professors,doctors,nurses general people from all departments.The hardest part of the job is when you have people coming in to bring their purchase orders and they all want it to be done urgently, but we have a system where we have a 48 hr turnover in which a p/o can be raised provided all the documents and signatures are in order. The people are overall genuinely polite and very understanding, with the odd one here and there who bring about a balance as we cannot have people all being the same.You also get to see how research is being done in various departments and feel proud that you can be a part of the change in everyday life,finding cures for deceases,producing vaccines etc.

Innovative change needs to be made. Processes take too long to change with all the red tape or. Staff need to be treated like adults and not children at school. More development for PASS staff.

I support transformation but appointments must be made for merit as well. We are stuck with these appointments and the work is delegated to people at the bottom who carry high paid staff sometimes over a million per annum to do their work or delegate their work to lower paying staff. You have to keep quiet and do your work- if you raise these issues it is swept under the rug. Management is aware of this but nothing is done about it, because it is an equity appointment yet we are talking about saving the university money - let's start saving money with high paying managers PC13 who many people are not sure of what work they actually do for what they get paid. 

With insourcing staff, permanent staff jobs are being threatened with possible retrenchments due to austerity measures.

On the positive side depending on the department you are in, you are encouraged to study. There is however no succession planning and most staff get stuck in their positions. To move up, you have to move out of your department and these opportunities will become even more limited in this environment of austerity.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The people I work with who are not academics. UCT is not accommodating when you are in a PASS (Professional Administrative Support Staff) as academics take preference.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
There is no real appreciation and/or support to admin staff. Even the university policies are tailored to academics. A lot more concessions are made for academics and the work culture doesn't promote or support career path and growth for Admin staff. There is a huge imbalance and no effort has been made to afford all staff, not just academics, xareer growth and planning.

In addition, all the policies are written in such a way that Directors and other exco members are able to weaponise policies against staff. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
If you are not an Academic, then you do not matter.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Lonely and boring. There is no stimulation and very little progression towards IR4. Furthermore, none academic staff turnover is extremely high as there is no career and/or salary progressions. This has resulted in skilled staff with a wealth of institutional knowledge leaving the university for better career and financial prospects.

A typical day at work should be about settling in with a fresh cup of coffee and routinely orientate myself with the environment; comfortably attending to my Outlook dairy to see what screams immediate attention and what can be parked for later. The best part of the day will be about engaging with people more than sitting behind a desk and pushing pencil/pen.

What I have learned is to play a positive role in the lives of others, sharing my life experiences and imparting knowledge not only in my profession but also life skills in general.

Management focus should firstly be on human relations, inspiring, encourage, engage and motivate individuals and collectives. Collaborative management makes great teams work together successfully, win together and celebrate rewards together.  

Workplace culture in my opinion is about mindset shifts from silo to open mentality. Embracing differences and respecting individuals for who they are. Aiming to achieve a common workplace culture taking in to account diverse dynamics.

The hardest part of the job in my opinion is what we tell ourselves  we cannot do or believe that it is beneath us to do. 

The most enjoyable part of the job is to see a smile on someone's face which l influenced, even though after tough conversation.

The courses i facilitate run from Wednesday to Friday. These are 3 hour sessions and we use experiential learning by exposing students to different learning methods for example role plays, debates and also the theoretical aspect. Facilitation is something that almost comes naturally to me. The aspect that i enjoy the most is seeing different individuals particularly the students who start off shy and not knowing how to deal with working in groups, mature and start finding their identity in the process. i have also realised that facilitation is not just about giving to the students but one also continues to learn and develop themselves through the different activities. Some topics we cover include Human rights, communication skills, interviewing skills and Professionalism.

There is a huge support structure and i get along very well with my colleagues and the management. 

i can say the hardest part of the job is trying not to be too nurturing to the students. Quite a lot of time is spent with students and at times i over identify with challenges they might be facing which leads to always feeling the need to help.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Tutor 17 salaries reported	R 127 per hour
Lecturer 11 salaries reported	R 798 471 per year
Research assistant 4 salaries reported	R 25 500 per month
Teaching assistant 3 salaries reported	R 9 833 per month
Postdoctoral fellow 3 salaries reported	R 251 667 per year

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