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The First Year Experience (FYE) at UTS

The FYE initiative is managed under Associate Professor Jo McKenzie and coordinated by Dr Kathy Egea from the IML. Since its inauguration at UTS, the FYE program has evolved to a broad and far-reaching program across a number of faculties and events, with the key themes being:

  1. Being a student and developing a student identity
  2. A sense of belonging to the university and as part of a group
  3. Supporting student experience in curriculum engagement, transition pedagogy and embedded academic learning support in faculties as well as co-curricular support
  4. Supporting academics, tutors and demonstrators to support students’ transition
  5. Navigating the system: supporting students to understand the UTS environment
  6. Aligned systems, policies and practices to support student success

So what did we learn from the first FYE forum for 2017?

1. FYE is the place to be

A quick show of hands told us that around 70% of the audience had previously attended an FYE forum – so we’re taking this as a big vote of confidence from UTS staff in the FYE forums as a resource for guiding new students, because why else would they keep coming back for more?

2. O Week is bigger than ever

Rachel Yasmineh, Marketing and Events Manager of UTS Careers briefed us on some of the changes to O Week in 2017. Where there was previously a separate orientation for Calendar B, this has been merged with the main orientation program, providing three weeks of orientation for everyone. O Week gives staff an opportunity to track where students are and how they’re feeling in their first weeks of university, so that we can know where they’re going next and how we can support them. Orientation registration numbers were also slightly elevated from previous years.

3. HELPS lives up to it’s name

Andy Pyke, manager of HELPS, delivered some figures on their reach across UTS. Annual individual registrations for HELPS have risen by over 1000 since the beginning of HELPS, with a distribution of 55% international students, 45% local, 65% undergraduate and 35% postgraduate. HELPS now offers drop-in availability, and clocked over 4,500 sessions alone last year – that’s a lot of helping! If students come to HELPS with an issue outside of their scope, HELPS will direct them to the right team in order to ensure students are not left on their own with issues. 2017 brings a new online professional communications program with online modules and an eLearning platform, designed to help students who are on the job hunt, or even looking for work experience and internships. HELPS Adviser David Sotir has written more about how HELPS can support your students here.

4. UTS Library is smashing stereotypes

Far from being dusty or quiet, the UTS Library is buzzing with activity. Ashley England updated us on some of the offerings. HeadsUp, a series of online modules to give students a head start, is back and running with helpful resources. The library has also recently acquired a number of digital literacy kits, with workshops expected to happen later in the year. Direct assistance is available for staff and students at the library, you need only contact the team to get started.

5. New students, same story – some things never change

Jenna Price, Christina Ho and Detlev Kerkovius delivered an entertaining online module designed to educate students about plagiarism, embedded into UTSOnline. Which goes to show, even though many of us here at UTS are well familiarised with the rules that come with studying in higher education, newer students still need to learn the ropes.

But wait, there’s more!

We also heard from Rob Worthington on the new subject dashboard, dipped our toes into some learning and teaching practice with Raechel Wight and her experiences in Accounting for Business Decisions A, launched into a group discussion on activities for Week 1 and were informed on the Respect campaign by Anita Dawson.

So what do we take away from this? There are so many ways to enable positive and successful experiences in the first year of our students, and it’s a crucial time to be guiding them. Make use of the tools and resources to help your students settle in!

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