Living on Campus Establishment

different uni - different learning experience

different country, for sure, different learning system

This is about an academic shock which is commonly experienced international students.

Here are some academic experiences I wanna share when I studied at University of Canberra, Australia.

Pre-course

This is a compulsory program for international students before the semester begins. Through the program, I learnt how to adapt to the academic life such as:

how to write academic papers with various genres based on the lecturers' instruction.
This is very important as most final projects in course units are papers. Failing in understanding the lecturers' instruction on the final paper carried failure of the project. I still remembered when I failed in one of mid-term project. Fortunately, the lecturer named Elke Stracke gave me a second chance by revising the paper for getting Pass (P). In Indonesia, it equals D. Of course I was crying, but then I realized that the main goal of my study was to gain knowledge and graduate. I started to gain my motivation that no matter the score I gained, I should finish on time. It worked !!!
how to manage my time
This is the hardest one. Living in different country offers bulks of excuses. In the first year, I lived on campus, at New Residence (semester 1) then moved to Old Resie (semester 2). Many interesting activities on campus which were hard to skip. I'm gonna tell you later. So, what did I do dealing with my time management? I followed what my Academic Skills Program suggested. I pinned all assignment deadlines, project, and campus or national events on my semester planner board. The planner board was free for all students and it was provided by campus shop.
I write all my targets of starting, processing, finishing the assignments, having consultation with the Academic Skills Program staff, joining the students union activities, attending various campus and society events.
Oh my God... lots of things to do. However, the planner is helpful as our reminder.
how to deal with living on campus
Living on campus means living in both academic and non-academic settings. The Pre-course dealt more on preparing international students in facing academic life. However, non-academic matters were also prepared. For instance, how to be behave in living on campus resies, storing food, water in Australia, shopping, and many more social life rules.
aha...
The most interesting thing which attracted my attention was on the crossing the street on zebra cross zone. All vehicles would stop when someone crossed the zebra cross. It means that the pedestrian's safety was the priority. If a driver broke the rule, he/she should pay penalty.

Orientation week (o-weeks)
The O-weeks program was run by the students union for welcoming new students. Anyway, it is totally different from orientation week in Indonesia.

For me, O-weeks event was like free shopping weeks😹😹
All student clubs mostly involved in this event. They promoted their programs, recruited new members, provided free snacks, foods, drinks, or merchandise. For students clubs which focused on hobbies, they mostly performed their hobbies such as music, dance, painting and many more.

Believe me...
You will enjoy your first weeks on campus!!!!
No welcoming speech formally...
No complicated assignments from the senior...
But....full of fun !!!

Anyway... besides for welcoming the new students, the main goals of the O-weeks were to help new students in campus adaptation. The O-weeks ambassadors (in orange T-shirt) would work in groups based on the schedule. They were mostly the students union members and would be the campus tour guide and assistants.
They showed all campus facilities such as building, lecturing rooms, tutorial rooms, students affair office, health center, sport center, hall, library, refectory/canteen, Academic Skills Program office, language center, parking lot, copying center, bank, internet/computer center and campus shop. Furthermore, they also introduced all systems on those facilities. For instance, how to operate photocopying machine, borrowing and renewing books online/offline, and the uses of students card.
This is the most essential one. The student card !!!
The student card was not only an identity card but also as a key to open some building/room doors, activation tool for the printing/copying/scanning machines, and payment tool for the printing machines.
In Indonesia, we just go to the photocopying center and let the operator finish your requests.
But...you can't do the same at UC.
No need to worry...
The ambassadors will show you how 😁