Academic Student Associations (ASAs) or Student Chapters (SCs) are a group of senior students from the faculty that represent you and the rest of the faculty students. At the NWU, we choose new ASAs/SCs annually.
ASAs/SCs act as the link between you and the faculty, help you with any complaints/queries that you may have, guide you the right direction and organise events for current and prospective students, among others.
On our Mahikeng and Vanderbijlpark Campus, we refer to this group of representative students as Student Chapters. Our Mahikeng and Vanderbijlpark Campuses each have their own SC for all the students within the faculty.
Therefore, if you study within the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences on the Mahikeng Campus, you belong to the SC named FNAS Mahikeng Campus Student Chapter (FNAS MC SC).
If you study within the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences on the Vanderbijlpark Campus, you belong to the SC named FNAS Vanderbijlpark Campus Student Chapter (FNAS VC SC).
On our Potchefstroom Campus, we refer to this group of representative students as Academic Student Associations. The Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences is also very large in terms of the amount of students that we have on this campus, and so we have 3 ASAs for the Faculty on this campus. These are namely, Scientiae, Ad Vivendum and PSA/BSV.
Each of the 3 Potchefstroom based ASAs represent different fields of study within the faculty. Scientiae represents students from the School for Physical and Chemical Sciences, the School for Computer Science and Information Systems, the School for Mathematical and Statistical Sciences and the Centre for Business Mathematics and Informatics. Ad Vivendum represents students from the School for Biological Sciences, the School for Geo- and Spatial Sciences (excluding the subject group for Urban and regional Planning) and the School for Agricultural Sciences. PSA/BSV represents students from the subject group Urban and Regional Planning.
But now you might be wondering, what if you study something like Chemistry and Microbiology? Chemistry forms part of the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences while Microbiology forms part of the School for Biological Sciences. So, do you belong to Scientiae or Ad Vivendum? To answer this, we have created a list of the programmes that fall under each ASA. Click here to access this list and find out which ASA you form part of.