President’s Welcome

CONTENTS

0 Acknowledgement of Country 1 Editorial 2 President’s Welcome 3 What is the SRC? 4 Important Contacts 5 SSAF 6 Getting involved with the SRC 7 Food Hub - Volunteers Needed! 8–9 SRC Collectives 10 SRC Legal Service 11 Centrelink 12 Accomodation 13 Academic Hurdles 14–15 Surviving Uni 16 Healthcare 17 Disability Rights on Campus 18-19 Food on Campus 20 Resources for victims of Sexual Assault 21 Clubs and Societies 22 International Student Guide 23 Opals - Fair Fares, Fair Education 24 Assessments during COVID 25–30 Faculty Guide 56 Contributors

President’s Welcome

SRC President Swapnik Sanagavarapu welcomes you to your time at USyd.

Hi I’m Swapnik, and I’m the President of the Students Representative Council (SRC). I’m delighted to welcome you to (or back to) the University of Sydney. For those of you that don’t know, the SRC is the peak representative body for undergraduate students at the University of Sydney. We run a bunch of free services for students, including a casework service and a legal service. The caseworkers can help you with anything from academic appeals to tenancy issues, while the legal service can assist you in a wide range of common legal matters. However, the SRC is best known for our activism. Our office-bearers and collectives run campaigns on a wide variety of issues that affect students, from increasing fees, to sexual assault on campus, to forcing the University to divest from fossil fuels. I also sit on a number of University committees, where I bring your concerns to the University’s senior management. Given that you’re beginning your University journey, I’d like to be able to give you a few trite pieces of advice and send you on your merry way. But I feel obliged to tell you the truth about studying at USyd. University is hard, and it’s only getting harder. The University is a bureaucratic nightmare - everything from enrolling in your subjects to finding your readings is utterly intractable. Online learning is at best alienating, and at worst an experience in dystopian surveillance (courtesy of exam proctoring software). Your teachers are overworked and underpaid. Fees have risen, but Universities have been deprived of funding by the Government. Despite all of these difficulties, University can be a magnificent place. You’ll hopefully learn immensely, meet amazing new people and experience tremendous personal growth. The SRC is committed to this vision of a better University, where everyone is able to participate fully and self-actualise, regardless of your class, race, gender, sexuality, disability or any other part of your identity. In my opinion, every student shares a few common interests. For one, we all share an interest in making sure that the quality of our education is never compromised. As a corollary to that, we have an interest in making sure that University staff are well paid and Universities are wellfunded. We all share an interest in seeing student life revitalised - but this means that students should be free from the tyranny of today’s casualised job market, so that they may have more time to enjoy their youth. We all understand that the University must be accessible to all who want it - which means that higher education should be free of cost, and free from its colonial legacy. This year, the SRC hopes to represent those interests, from the University boardrooms to the streets. We’ve got a number of things planned for the year, so you’re likely to see a lot of the SRC and a lot of me. We’re going to be upgrading the legal service, fighting for free education, handing out free essentials to students at our FoodHub in the Wentworth Building, and campaigning for staff rights and free education. To find out more about what we’re doing this year, head to the Get Involved section on our website (srcusyd.net.au) or look at our Facebook page (facebook.com/usydsrc). In solidarity, Swapnik Sanagavarapu