In September last year, a group of four undergraduate physiotherapy students from the University of the Western Cape travelled to Oslo for a two week exchange programme as part of a larger project on internationalisation. They were paired with four students from the local institution, Oslo Metropolitan University as part of a two-year funded research project exploring the social and contextual factors that influence our understanding of health and rehabilitation.
The purpose of the visit was for the South African students to immerse themselves in the Norwegian culture by spending time with the OsloMet students; visiting with them, going out and eating together, and on some days just walking the city together. There were some visits to clinical placements and a few classes to attend but the main aim was for them to get a sense of what it feels like to live in a place that’s very different to what they experience at home.
This episode is one of the outcomes of the project, where we sat down with the students during the visit to Oslo and talked about the exchange experience and what they had learned from each other.
You can find out more at the project website, including a gallery of the students’ photos during their visit.
We are grateful to the students for their willingness to allow us to record the conversation for In Beta.
Students involved in the exchange programme
| Oslo Metropolitan University (Norway) | University of the Western Cape (South Africa) |
| Eveline Benschop | Kelsey Gerbach |
| Martina Kaufmann | Belle Isaacs |
| Linda Ørnes | Brandon Serrao |
| Mathilde Thommessen | Tshifhiwa Ndou |
Note that the audio quality isn’t great in certain sections, as the students were distributed around a large table and weren’t always close to the microphone.