Welcome to episode 11 of the OC 154 Podcast.

This is one episode that is jam packed with stories, stories for days I tell you, of our time during varsity days, at Wits, which is where the three of us first met.

A bit of background on what the CC, or Central Committee we keep referring to is…basically an informal think tank of some sort at Mens Res that we had. From what I can recall, the genesis of this so-called CC was around our second year into third year at Mens Res. There was a pool table in there where gents would gather during their free time to play pool in the common room. Now and again, an argument would erupt about any range of topics, but mostly politics, both on a national level and Wits. Over time there started being rules around how these arguments take place, some house rules if you like. I just remember us nit even playing pool anymore in that room, where the primary reason for going there was to hang out and argue with gents. My memory might be failing me here, but I hope I got the crux of it right.

I am recording this after a weekend where I attended my fiancé graduation at the University of the Free State. And she, like many of her fellow graduates, have very little experience of a university campus life because a great majority of their degrees were completed remotely, while the world was under COVID lockdowns. So if you are a first year at a tertiary institution this year, your seniors on campus this year who doing their post-graduate might not be the best example of the sort of mindset that a tertiary student should have, and to no fault of their own. So I highly recommend this episode as we make a deep dive into discussing the hidden curriculum that comes with sharing a physical campus with different people from all walks of life, and who are equally or smarter than you, who are from different financial backgrounds from you, and so forth. In fact, this particular episode was inspired by an interview we had watched of one of our former fellow raiders at Mens Res, Phesheya, that he did with Penuel. The guy comes from a very affluent family and he stayed with the rest of us, peasants at Mens res. And I was taken aback to hear some of the challenges he spoke about that came with being a cheese boy. It turns out, that the identity crisis that many of us suffer in our early adulthood, is orthogonal to how well off the family you come from is.

We explore many other related topics such as, the quality, or lack thereof, of the basic education in South Africa, university administrative structures, the value of Res life versus off campus living, the importance of being street smart in university, financial and academic exclusion, navigating friendships with friends that did not get to go to university, and other topics.

We start off the episode by exploring the complexities and the dynamics between inter-socio class friendships, and the moreki complex amongst friends, sparked by a story about myself and a friend of mine who could not make it to varsity but ended up with "I blew it" money after the passing of his father.

As we approach the end of our recording, we begin to catch out on all the stories that were narrated throughout our recording, we get into the what I can call the punchline of our conversation, we extract lessons the country can learn from this micro-community that we were part of at Mens res, given the striking