Mbeki spent the early years of his exile in the United Kingdom. In 1962, aged 19, he arrived at the brand-new University of Sussex, earning first a BA degree in economics, and then remaining to complete a Master's degree in African studies. While at Sussex he saw himself as a representative of the ANC and helped motivate the university population against apartheid. Still in the UK, he worked in the ANC's London office on Penton Street. He received military training in the Soviet Union and lived at different times in Botswana, Swaziland and Nigeria, but his primary base was in Lusaka, Zambia, the site of the ANC headquarters.