Hi everyone my name is Nikki and I work
as a Prospective Student Advisor here at Flinders University.
Today I'll be running you through a brief presentation about introducing you
to what university life might be looking like.
To get things started I thought we'd start with some terminology. Some common
questions that we get asked is what's the difference between a course, a degree
and a bachelor. Quite often these are interchangeable. At
Flinders they all mean the same thing. An undergraduate degree is your first
degree at Flinders University. This means you're an undergraduate
student until you complete all the components of your first degree.
Generally speaking some students then choose to go on and do postgraduate
study. Postgraduate study is further learning
in sometimes the same field as your undergraduate degree
but sometimes it can also be in a completely different area of study as
well. The next area we have are topics this is
one that can cause a little bit of confusion because sometimes different
universities call them different things but essentially the topics are what your
degree is made up of. Think of them as your year 12 subjects,
your year 12 year was made up of perhaps four or five different subjects
just like an undergraduate degree is made up of a variety of different topics.
The next one we have are our majors and minors. Majors you don't actually need to
apply for however you do need to consider them
once you've been made an offer. A major is your primary field of study
that you'd like to focus on. A minor is a secondary field of study in
that you generally have less topics compared to a
major and a specialisation is something you
apply for in your SATAC application. An example of this is your Bachelor of
Science (Animal Behaviour). The specialisation is generally shown in
brackets. Now before I get started into some more
information on Flinders University I thought I'd introduce you and perhaps
show you a little bit of a video of what Flinders University looks like.
This next short clip shows you a lot of what the University campuses look like
but also what orientation week looks like.
So you may have seen on the video that we have a variety of different campuses
however our three main campuses I'll be going over briefly.
The main campus that most undergraduate students choose to study at
is our Bedford Park Campus. We're located about 20 minutes out of the city and
we're really excited because at the moment we do have a train line being
built that will take students directly from the city into our
Bedford Park Campus which is scheduled to be finished by the end of the year.
At Bedford Park, we have a brand new student Hub and Plaza. This was built
only a few years ago and opened up to our students.
This was designed by students for our students.
A lot of the spaces within the new Hub and Plaza aren't actually designed for
learning, think of things like cafes, restaurants, bars,
they can all be found within our Hub and Plaza. However outside of the Hub and
Plaza we have a variety of different study areas so
all of our education students are generally based in one area of the
campus, same with our science students and our
humanities students as well. So this means that you're constantly
seeing people that become familiar faces and potentially friends down the track
as well. We are based out of the city so that
means that we've had to bring everything onto campus, so things like a pharmacy,
doctors clinics are all here on campus, so this makes for a really unique
environment and are something that our students really value. We provide a
community experience so instead of going home in between classes
our students tend to stay on campus and socialise with friends
really building those strong relationships.
The next campus we have is our Tonsley campus. If you are interested in studying
computer science, engineering or maths then it's really likely that from your
second year on you'll be based at Tonsley.
Tonsley is an incredible facility where all of the gizmos, gadgets and robots
you could possibly want are based at Tonsley. This is a purpose-built building
designed for computer science, engineering and
mathematics students, so it means that it's designed with all
of the technology you could possibly want
so much so that businesses and industries actually rent out spaces
within tonsley to utilise the technology that our
students learn on. This means that you're potentially
networking and building relationships with potential employers
while you're studying. And of course the final campus that we have here in
Adelaide is our Victoria Square campus. This campus is largely used for
postgraduate study so that means that our business postgraduate students can
choose to study their postgraduate Certificate Diploma or
Masters level qualification from our Victoria Square campus.
So now that we've spoken a little bit about the campuses and where you will be
studying, I guess how do you get there, how do you
get to what you want? The first things to consider when you're choosing your
degree is perhaps what you need in order to
apply so this becomes really important in year 12. So some of you watching this
may be fresh school leavers but others perhaps haven't studied for a number of
years. That's completely fine all of the
prerequisites will still matter to you though. There's a bit of a misconception
out there that all courses at university have
prerequisite topics, that's absolutely not the case. Generally
speaking at Flinders our prerequisite topics
fall into the engineering, computer science and maths area.
This means that in order to be eligible to apply for some of these degrees
you need to have completed topics in year 12 before you can apply.
However if you haven't don't panic it's certainly not the end of the world
that's why people like us exist and we can help you navigate your way through
the variety of pathways available. We do have a couple of prerequisite
topics in the STEM and science world as well so make sure
you keep an eye out for those. Other things that aren't called
prerequisites but are additional entry requirements can
often be found in our Creative Arts suite. So if you're interested in dance
or drama or perhaps creative writing then
sometimes you do need to provide an audition
or show reel or portfolio of your work. This is something that you should be
looking into perhaps now if you are considering some of these
options to study down the track. Assumed knowledge is an area that you
don't need to have in order to be able to apply for university however it'll
help you along your way once you do get to university.
Our academics will assume that you have a base level knowledge of understanding
in that area so if you haven't done a topic that is
listed as assumed knowledge please don't panic just be wary that you may need
a little bit of extra help when it does come to studying once you're
at university. There's a couple of different ways that you can check your
prerequisites and assumed knowledge. One way is online via our course page,
another way is through our course brochure.
Within our course brochure you'll see it's all pretty well laid out nice and
clearly for you, it lists your prerequisites your assumed
knowledge, your guaranteed entry your competitive
entry and also has some career opportunities that may be available for
you. This is a bit of a quick reference that
you can use. The other thing that this page will show
is sometimes your combined degree options. Combined degree options
are degrees where you can sometimes take two degrees and put them into one.
There's again a bit of a misconception out there that
combined degree options often mean that you're doing double the work that's
absolutely not the case. At Flinders we've recognised that quite
a few of our degrees have some similar topics within them
or our degrees can be really flexible so what this means is we perhaps take two
three-year degrees that are quite similar,
put them together and we can turn that into perhaps a four-year degree
it does not mean you're doing more work than anyone else, it just extends your
degree slightly. There's a lot of benefits to doing it to
combine degree option it makes you more employable because
you're walking away with two degrees and perhaps builds your skill set in a
variety of different areas. It also makes it a little bit cheaper
than if you're to do two full degrees at the same time.
I've spoken a lot about your pathways into university and quite often that
does refer to your school results or your school ATAR.
Again if you haven't studied at school for quite some time that's nothing to
stress about, your ATAR is only one pathway into
university. I won't speak too much about this
because we do have another presentation that you can watch purely on pathways
into university. However what I will mention is that if
you did complete school even last year or maybe 20 years ago
your school results do not expire your school results will stand until
you've studied at university for more than two years
that means that we can look at your school results even if you're perhaps 50
years old. However if you do want to increase your
chances of being made an offer or perhaps year 12 didn't go to plan for
you or maybe you didn't complete your 12 then we have a lot of different pathways
that you can use it might be worthwhile considering STAT,
Foundation Studies or maybe using TAFE as your pathway into university.
Now this next slide I'd like to speak a little bit about but I don't want you to
get too overwhelmed with it just yet. This is all once you get to university
but the reason I'm mentioning this to you now
is because it is really important to consider your pathways into university.
So some of you may be at the stage where you're submitting a SATAC application
to attend Flinders University. This is where we will always list what you want
to get into most as your number one preference but then perhaps as your
second preference this is where we encourage you to
perhaps speak with someone like myself and we can talk you through your next
next option. The way that works is that your second
preference will always be slightly less competitive
than your first, meaning that if you don't get the score you need to get
straight into your first preference you might be made an offer into your
second preference and if you've chosen it wisely,
then that means that some of the topics will cross over with your first
preference. For example, if you really want to get
into the Bachelor of Criminology but you perhaps don't think you'll get
the score you need to get straight into that degree
then maybe we've recommended that you should start in a Bachelor of Arts
that's because within the bachelor of arts you can actually do topics within
criminology. If you made an offer into the Bachelor
of Arts you can begin your study, work really hard to get some good grades.
Your grades once you get to university go towards something called a Grade
Point Average or a GPA. The highest GPA you can get is out of
seven so if you're on a seven GPA then you're averaging on high
distinctions. Once you've completed four topics at university you will have
completed enough topics to generate a GPA
and that GPA we can then use as your basis of admission to transfer
into the Bachelor of Criminology. Again nothing to stress about too much right
now especially if you haven't applied yet
but just know that it is really important to consider your pathway
options into university. So now that we've spoken
a little bit about your pathways into university and what's available to you
so once you get to university what can you expect? Well
again I understand some of you watching this may not have completed school
recently, however we're lucky enough that most of us would
have attended school at some point in time.
So the main difference between school and university is the fact that you're
at university because you want to be, you're here because you're choosing to
study. At school you may not have necessarily
wanted to have been there. Once you're at university you're in with
like-minded people because you have a passion for what you're studying
and so do the people in your class. That means it's a great foundation for
friendships. The other difference is the fact that
you have independence and freedoms to choose what you want.
If you don't want to study a full-time study load then you don't have to
you can study part-time and then still work a considerable amount
the biggest difference perhaps is the amount of time you spend at university
compared to school. The time that you actually could
potentially spend at university is really quite small compared to the
amount of time you have as a uni break but to break this down a little bit more
for you. This is an actual timetable or will be an actual
timetable of a current student at Flinders University.
He is studying a Bachelor of Health Sciences with a Master of Occupational
Therapy - so a double degree. This is the time he's
actually required to be on campus. This was his semester one
undergraduate timetable. The light blue was the time that he chose to study so
he studies best at night time and he did that
he chose to study between 7.00pm and 1am a lot of the nights
but then he also worked part-time and then he often played sport. His
Saturday was spent playing cricket and a lot of the time throughout the week
was training. So you can see that obviously this does change a little bit
from week to week however it gives you a
little bit of an idea about what your university week might look like.
Of course if you are studying different degrees that will vary quite
significantly as well. At Flinders we recognise that university
is not just about study anymore we want you to succeed and to succeed you often
need to have that study life balance so we encourage you to get involved with
the clubs, the societies and the sporting teams that we have available to you.
There's a huge amount of activities that you can get involved in, whether it's
Harry Potter that you're interested in, baking, exploring, scuba diving, we have
all of the clubs and societies that you could possibly want.
I strongly recommend you get involved with them, it's a great way to meet new
people and just remember everyone has been in your exact same circumstance and
perhaps a little bit nervous about joining a club.
One of the best things that we recommend students do is to study abroad.
What this means is that you can choose to study some of your degree overseas.
This is an experience that will build life skills. This next video will show
you some of the highlights of studying abroad,
it will show you some of the places that you can see while you're still working
away at your degree
So as you can see studying abroad can lead to so many incredible experiences.
If you are interested in studying abroad then make sure you get in touch with our
Study Abroad team early on in your degree
so you can find out when it will work best for you. And perhaps the most
important thing I'll leave you with is our support network.
At Flinders you'll never be alone quite often at school you get told that once
you get to university you're entirely by yourself
and that's absolutely not the case. We do have people here that can help you draft
your assignments or perhaps teach you how to
reference properly. We also have people that can help you
out financially we have a team of people here
to help you get through university in the smoothest way possible.
So make sure you explore all of our support services available
and seek the support you need before it gets too overwhelming
because we'll always be here to help you out. So thank you very much for joining
me today. I hope you learned a little bit about Flinders University
and what to expect when you come here. Hopefully I'll see you on campus next year.