node.live

Hello everyone

Today I want to talk about... no, that's mean: of course I will tell you about the title to this blog entry! I would be as curious as the proverbial cat wanting to know all about the insect and the tea and why on earth I have a waiter in my room bringing me said tea with said insect in it... 

First day of semester is on us tomorrow. If you are a new first year student on campus, take up the following challenge this first week:

O Week is definately underway! How do I know? Well ... there's lots of excited (and very vocal!) first years gathering around the Student Services reception area. I'm guessing that the constant flow of students is linked to O-Quest and it sounds like everyone involved is having a lot of fun. I wish there was something like this when I was a first year! If you're a first year, please share some of your O Week experiences? I'd love to hear some first hand accounts!

Flying Start is over for another year! We had such a great group of students at our Flying Start orientation this year. They all seemed to have plenty of questions and were keen to meet each other and their leaders. The hot weather made life a bit exhausting but everyone was very patient.

I'm finding it hard to believe that another academic year is about to begin. And that means -YES -it's time for Flying Start again. In case you haven't heard of it, Flying Start is UniSkills' great 2 day orientation program for first year undergrads who are new to Perth and want to make some new friends before uni starts. Or maybe they are students from schools that only enrol a few students at UWA. And then there are some mature age students who get involved.

I've just been helping out at enrolments and it was so much fun. It's so wonderful to be able to assist new students with their transition. A lot of students seemed quite confused and lost, which is "normal". There is a lot to take in, a lot of new faces, a lot of new uni-lingo and acronyms, and a lot of people offering you all sorts of information. Does anyone want to share their enrolment experiences or have any transiition tips to offer?

I'm sitting on the floor of my office, surrounded by 1000s of flyers, trying to get things ready for enrolments next week. It seems to be taking ages, but I guess it's kind of relaxing! My mind keeps wandering and I keep thinking back to my enrolment day. It was pretty scary!

From next week I won't be available in the Resource Room on Fridays. I'll still be around as usual on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. On Thursdays I'll be available by appointment only as I'm based in the student services building that day.

Great news for UniSkills that it has been successful in winning the Australian Teaching and Learning Council award for Support of Student Learning in the category of First Year. We prepared a submission back in July and were really not expecting to be successful because the competition is pretty strong. But the Uniskills program is 21 years old this year and we thought that was a strong 'hook' on which to hang an argument about the value of a program that has had over 4,000 students be part of it over the years.

I can't believe it -tomorrow sem 2 starts and  all those good intentions about being prepared and getting organised seemed to have flown out the window already. I was going to do some reading, wasn't I. Well I did but it wasn't anything to do with uni work. And I was going to think up a system to get my notes organised. Somehow I got through sem 1 so it couldn't have been that bad but there were a few last minute all-nighters with deadlines due. Maybe not such a good idea. I aim to be a bit ahead of the deadlines but somehow they just sneak up on me.