Attending university can be a daunting experience, especially for students enrolling for the first time or, as the case may be, the first time in years.
That’s where GET/UPP — the Griffith Educational Tertiary/University Prep Program — comes in, with the aim of helping new students build their confidence and polish their skills to ensure they’re able to get the most out of their studies right from the outset.
For Bachelor of Business student Strauss Ngawaka, undertaking GET/UPP was a crucial step in preparing himself for a return to tertiary education after nearly 20 years’ experience in the workforce.
“It was just about trying to find your feet at uni,” Strauss, who completed the program in 2015, recounts. “And it’s familiarising yourself with the environment at university, how things work, and how to navigate your way around the different processes that go on there.
“For example, one of the components was learning how to use library resources, and where to go to get help if you needed to write such things as essays.
“They went through the process of how to write essays, so it was establishing where to go, what this means, and a little bit of detail about how to go about achieving in the work that you apply there.”
The free five-day program also canvasses subjects such as time management, research, reading and writing skills, assessment preparation and more.
In addition, Strauss says, there are upsides to making early community connections with your fellow students.
“Being there with others and learning together was the biggest part that made the program work,” he says.
Although he initially pursued a Bachelor of Applied Information Technology, Strauss ultimately made the switch to Business — he’s now in his final year — and hasn’t looked back, saying that he would “absolutely” recommend the GET/UPP experience to anyone new to the university life, especially given its practical benefits.
“It’s all about you working out how you go about trying to get information in order to pass different courses,” he says.
“It’s the same thing out in the field; you’re expected to work hard and to find information and go about it the right way, working with people — and, for me, that’s what I’ve got out of it: learning how to express yourself and speak in a way that’s professionally minded so it makes sense out in the business world.”
GET/UPP 2018 will be held at Griffith’s Logan campus from 25-29 June, 22-26 October, and 3-7 December.
Visit griffith.edu.au/getupp for more information on how to book your place.