ADAM - TAFE SA AND UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA BUSINESS SCHOOL
I chose to pursue TAFE study as I was still deciding on a career path — I felt it would give me the opportunity to explore my chosen career in more detail. I also saw it as an opportunity to decide whether this was an industry I was passionate about and prepared to pursue further through a university education. I found TAFE to be a more mature approach to learning and development than high school education, as it helped me recognise my strengths and highlight areas I needed to improve. It gave me a realistic impression of my career choices and the challenges in obtaining future employment. TAFE is a great bridge between school and university as it develops the analytical, comprehension and learning skills required to transition into university comfortably. After studying at TAFE I felt university wasn’t as daunting — I had a stronger career focus and felt confident in my ability to succeed.
Student Survival Tips
So, you’ve finally sorted through all the tough decisions and are about to embark on your higher education journey. You’re probably wondering what comes next. Here are some survival tips to get you through first year and help you succeed in your degree. What to do… before your first lecture Go to Orientation Week (O-Week) and get familiar with your campus. O-Week is a week of fun activities designed to help you ease into uni life, blow off some steam and make friends before classes start. Institutions usually offer a range of activities, from scavenger hunts, sporting activities and pub crawls to information sessions and campus tours. Orientation is also the ideal time to discover the services that your institution has to offer: go on a library tour, join some clubs and familiarise yourself with the campus. The more comfortable and at home you feel, the more likely you are to be enthusiastic about your course and motivated to do well academically. The first few weeks can be stressful, meaning that being organised is crucial. Some simple preparation can really help, so consider taking a trial public transport run, printing out subject outlines or purchasing your textbooks in advance. What to do… in your lectures, tutorials and labs This depends on what course you are doing and how your classes are set up. If you’re an arts student, for example, your lectures will generally be made up of 100 or more students while there may only be 15 to 20 students in your tutorials. Labs are more common in hands-on courses such as health and engineering. Lectures involve a lecturer delivering material, usually with the help of visual aids. You should make notes about the main points but don’t try to take down every single word that the lecturer is saying. Use your course outline as a guide to what you should be learning each week and structure your notes around it. Tutorial sessions and labs are much more interactive and often require active participation from students, typically in much smaller numbers. Remember that class interaction often forms a part of your course mark, so don’t be afraid to speak up and ask questions if you don’t understand something.
