Fed Uni – Stuff Students Need To Know

Panic, procrastination and pot of gold

As I’m sure you’re well aware by now, we have reached week 10 already. How on earth did that happen?? If you’re anything like me that sentence just sent your brain into the upside down, inside out, Alice in Wonderland world of chaos and confusion.

Okay, so lets procrastinate for a moment or two and really give this some thought…. It’s week 10, you’re still working on that task from week 2 and your assessment to-do list that you wrote with all good intentions in week 1 has long been re-purposed into a coffee coaster, that is no longer legible for the coffee stains. It’s at this point you start thinking, what am I doing, I’m so far behind, I’ll never be able to catch up and get it all finished in time, I may as well QUIT!!

After you’re mini quitting meltdown, you think to yourself, “It’s going to be okay, I’ve got this! I’m going to write a new to-do list and I will get started on the first task straight away!” Full of optimism, you write that list, then look at it and think, “No problem, I can have that ticked off by week 12, maybe even a little earlier!!”

Now that you have your beautifully colour coded to-do list in your hand, it would be safe to assume that you sit down and get cracking on that first task, right? Wrong! Instead you photograph that list and post it on all your social media pages, boasting to all your followers about how organised you are. You then take a break because you’ve worked so hard today making said list, plus you need to keep refreshing your feeds to make sure your fans are liking and commenting on your outstanding display of time management. We all know that this cycle continues with you cooking toast for dinner at 9:30pm because you flicked over to watch some funny cat videos online whilst waiting for people to comment on your post. It’s at this point you realise you didn’t tick a single item off your to-do list and you now have one less day to get everything completed. But this doesn’t phase you too much as you trundle off to bed at midnight (you had to just check in on your social media accounts one last time for the day) you think to yourself, “I WILL get started on it first thing tomorrow”.

As you drag yourself out of bed at 10am (“Oh no! I overslept, how on earth did that happen??”), you have a serious case of the dreaded ‘can’t be bothereds’, which let’s face it was pretty much inevitable after a dinner that lacked some serious nutrition, followed by a really late night, smashing down red bull, eyes hanging out of your head scrolling through mind numbing news feeds.

It’s right about now that I’m going to hit you with some tough love, prepare yourself, it’s time to get real! If you stay on this current trajectory, it will be week 11 before you can blink, you won’t have achieved anything you set out to do and the stress levels will be completely unmanageable. But if you want to see the light at the end of the tunnel and calmly walk (well maybe run) into it, you have got to do things differently.

I have two techniques that I have picked up over the years that may be of value to you. I did not design these and I stumbled across them far later in my degree than I would have liked but never the less they made my last year of university my least stressful.

Tip # 1: Just do something, anything!!

The idea here is that you have that beautifully colourful to-do list already complete, first job done, tick! Now let’s get cracking. Pick one thing on that to-do list that you can do really quickly. I mean the quickest easiest task on there, do it now and cross it off. We all know how satisfying it is to cross something off a list, so much so that I have even been known to write things on my to-do list that I already accomplished before writing said to-do list just so I could cross them off straight away, everybody does that right; right? Each day for the next three and a bit weeks make it your motto to ‘just do something, anything’ on the list, because something is better than nothing, and the more somethings you do the more motivation you gain to do the rest of your somethings.

Tip # 2: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Blast Off!

The first tip is great but there’s a a grey area to it’s success and that is the over-thinker. You and I are the people who pick a something on a our to-do list and then decide to make a cuppa and give it some thought before starting. We are also the people who put off making that call to the doctor/hairdresser/tax accountant to book an appointment, we sit and we think and we think and then we think so much that we eventually talk ourselves out of doing it, because we probably don’t have the time to do it now, and we put it back on the list to deal with tomorrow, which soon becomes next month. The 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blast off theory is that once the rocket is launched there’s no way to stop it from taking off. So, pick your something to do and then in your head do the count down and when you hear the words blast off, just do it there and then. Job’s done, cross it off in big black marker, so very, very satisfying!!

Although there’s always a bit (sometimes a lot) of pressure, stress and tension at this time of the semester, everyone around you is usually feeling the same way, you are definitely not alone. All you can do is take a deep breath, eat well, get plenty of sleep and give these tips a go, you just might find your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Good Luck!!

Beck

ASK Desk, SMB.

Cath goes to the National Study Leadership Workshop

Today I went to Melbourne with 3 of my fellow leadership mates from FedUni to attend a workshop on student leadership at universities. It was really rewarding and I was proud to be able to represent FedUni as a student leader.

After the train trip to Melbourne and a quick coffee from a cafe, we went up to the City Campus of Latrobe University to meet with the other participants in the workshop and share in the fruit and danishes that were kindly provided for breakfast. Continue reading Cath goes to the National Study Leadership Workshop

Submitting Assignments

Hello readers. Today I wanted to discuss one of the easiest ways of passing your courses and completing your degree. It really is a simple strategy for success! The basic premise of this strategy is that once you have completed your assignment you then submit it to be evaluated. Now, you may think I’m talking crazy talk here but put your faith in me. With this simple trick you will be passing your courses left, right, and centre!

Although this little tip is simple enough, there are a few tricks to the trade you may need to know. So now let us assume that you have completed your assignment. You may be standing there thinking to yourself “now what do I do?!” That’s where our first trick of the trade comes into practice my friends, which is: referring to your course description. This lovely little piece of gold contains many wonders inside, not just including all the criteria you need to write your way to the coveted HD but also what to do with your work once you have completed it. The easiest of the possible ways to submit an assignment is handing it in during a tutorial. Usually when this method is requested, the actual work is done during the tutorial, which approximately multiplies the ease of submission by two (that’s mathematics for you, so you know it’s good). You’re already attending all of the tutes (riiiight?), so how easy is that?!

The second two ways of submission are almost just as easy as the first. These ways are through submitting through a physical assignment box or uploading digitally — sometimes you even get to do both at once. Submitting digitally through turnitin is a good one to keep an eye out for. If you are asked to do this for your assignment there will be a link in your moodle shell for you to upload to. If this is the case and you submit it through the general turnitin page to check it over rather than your course specific one, you’re gonna have a bad time. When you submit for assessment, it will pick it up as an exact copy to what you have already submitted through the general turnitin and show up 100% as copied. That is generally something you want to avoid.

The third way to submit your assignment is becoming less popular in this digital world we live in — but still exists for some schools — and that is submitting into an assignment box. For us psychology students we have a physical assignment box in the first floor of H building in which we submit hard copies of our assignments into. Your course description again becomes invaluable by informing you which assignment box to hand it into and where to find it if you are doing a course that asks for this submission method. In addition to this, when handing in a physical copy of an assignment there is usually a cover sheet that you will be asked to submit with it. Knowing whose work they’re marking is beneficial for tutors and often there is other information to be filled out such as word counts and a declaration that you haven’t plagiarised to sign. Personally, I find the physical submission of an assignment to be therapeutic after the long journey to completion. There’s something cathartic about watching the stapled pieces of paper (I should have probably mentioned already that stapling an assignment together with the cover sheet is a brilliant idea for obvious reasons) fall down into the depths of the box. It is almost as if the worry and stress is pulled out and down along with it.

The final bit of advice for submitting assignments that I have is possibly the most simple of all: just submit it. The odds of passing a course greatly improve when you have submitted all assignments than when you haven’t submitted any. Not submitting assignments is a pretty surefire way to not succeed. Where even a half-finished assignment will get at least some marks, a non-submitted assignment will just get you a shiny fail. As a last resort, when all other options such as course or special consideration have been exhausted and you still do not have a complete assignment to submit, something is better than nothing. It seems like a pretty easy idea, a simple practice, but it’s something that happens. So now that you know where to find the submission method and how to submit the assignment you all should have no worries with getting your assignments to where they need to go!

Catch you all on the flip side and happy submitting,

Captain Dan.

Living on Res

Living on Res offers many things, some of the most helpful being meeting new people and friends, having a good time and living close to University. It offers a lot of great events and activities that include trips, theme nights and unit activities. Some examples of events are compass week, dinners (such as Res Ball), sports events such as netball, kayaking, footy, and trips such as the Kokoda trek and, at the end of the year, the annual FedUni Living Awards Night is held to look back at the good times and contributing members. All these events and more can be found on the Fed Uni website. However, with all these events and parties going on it is easy to lose track of why you came to University in the first place.

It happens time and time again. First years get caught up in partying and going to nightclubs with their friends. After weeks of partying and going to Bluestone every Wednesday of their lives they realise that they have to finish three septillion assignments (trust me, that’s a big number). Your friends always call you the minute you want to start doing work (this is something I battled with while living on res) and it is harder to ignore when the people you live with in your unit are your friends. It is a natural reaction to want to hang out with your friends instead of doing work. We are social animals and it has been embedded in us with years of evolution. I think psychologists have a word for this, but I hate using this word as I am quite a stubborn man that believes that he is immune to it, so I won’t use it :). It is true to everyone, though, and you know sometimes the cool thing to say when you’re asked to go to a party is ‘no’. It proves that you are not dependent, and your friends will respect you for that.

Also please don’t misinterpret my statement above: ‘it is harder to ignore when the people you live with in your unit are your friends’. Res people are definitely not at any sort of disadvantage. They live a few footsteps away from Uni, and many of its great services, such as the Library and the 24 hour computer labs. Res is an ideal place to study and do well. And whenever you’re in any doubt or stress and think studying and living on Res is too hard, or just studying is too hard for that matter, just think about the international student that has to travel from Melbourne, work part time and hand in all of his assignments on time (me). What could he achieve if he was living on campus, and would he waste his time going to nightclubs?

I would like to emphasize that there is nothing wrong with going to a nightclub or having a good time once in a while (I keep contradicting my last paragraph). Like everyone in the whole universe said before: everything in moderation. It only damages your well-being when it’s over, with no end in sight and for no particular reason.

Eli

O-Week

Nothing beats the excitement of your first O-Week and the chance at a fresh start! There are so many opportunities to take advantage of, especially with the spread of stalls offering a multitude of things ranging from cheap flights to academic help. In my opinion, never miss an opportunity. Sign up to the things that interest you or even jump outside of your comfort zone and try something completely different! Make sure you go to all the classes that are offered to you on O-Week with your mentors because, as boring as some of them can be, it is all information that you need and gives you a chance to better bond with your mentor and other first year students.

This brings me to the events — my favourite bit! Because it is your first year, it is best to embrace the chance of meeting new people and building your confidence. What better way to do this than going out with some of the new people you met and meeting so many more people from all different courses? Even if you need a bit of Dutch courage… do it! Go and talk to new people, dance and have fun! If you don’t think your body could handle all four events then pick a couple to go to and get keen to make up for it every other O-Week of your course!

Remember, Uni is probably the best time of your life, so make the most of it and have fun. Even if you embarrass yourself (which I have made a habit of doing. Haha) just enjoy everything about it, because the time will fly.

EMBRACE IT!

Steph

My boss has blue hair.

You just never know what to expect with my boss. The SALs fearless leader makes quite an impression wherever she goes. You get used to the Mohawk hairstyle pretty quickly, it suits her. But to have hair that stands up way above your head has consequences. She has to sit far at the side of the lecture theatre so that she doesn’t block the view behind her, unless of course she has been in such a rush that the Mohawk is more of a stylish comb over. There have been a range of interesting colours this year from pink to white blond and now a momentous blue. What’s so special about this colour? Well check it out…

Ellen is sporting this new look for our brand new university. As at the 1^st of January 2014 we will be attending Federation University Australia. http://www.federation.edu.au/

Now I should take this opportunity to welcome the folks from down in Gippsland to the team. We’re looking forward to reading some blogs from our new friends there. From what I have learned so far things will run pretty much as usual for all of the students, there will just be more opportunities opening up as resources from the campuses start to be shared. Keep your eye out for more information as our Universities ‘level up’.

Cheers

~Glenn

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