Abstract
Abstract First year students often feel ill-equipped academically and emotionally, hindering their integration and adjustment into university life. This paper describes a standardised orientation program for first year undergraduate students focusing on peer and academic support based on ‘just-in-time’ and ‘just-for-me’ principles, assisting commencing students to achieve a smooth transition into university. This initiative has been employed since 2009, in one of the three large colleges at the University of Western Sydney, to foster a sense of community and reduce stress among commencing students. Building on existing orientation activities, we introduced three new activities which focused on ‘just-in-time’ information for the first year, first semester experience, incorporation of student presentations and the inclusion of ice-breaker activities. Evaluative feedback revealed strong academic support for the initiatives, with College of Health & Science students reporting their orientation experience significantly more positively (P=0.003) than students from the other two colleges.
Highlights
This practice report has been accepted for publication in Int J FYHE
The college consists of six large schools spread over four campuses who together offer 33 distinct undergraduate programs, with some offered across multiple campuses
As only College of Health and Science (CHS) implemented the standardised orientation program, we examined differences in student perception of orientation between the three colleges
Summary
This practice report has been accepted for publication in Int J FYHE. Please see the Editorial Policies under the ‘About’ section of the Journal website for further information. The university’s Student Services Division (SSD) organised orientation sessions and had implemented a number of best practice initiatives.
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