First Week Survival Guide

uwa student guild welfare department first week survival guide

Welcome University is probably going to bring some of the best times of your life. You’ll make new friends, learn new things, and experience a totally different world from what you were used to at high school. But it’s not always fun and games.

Sometimes the stress of managing your social life, work and study can be too much to handle. That’s what the Student Welfare Department is here for! If you’re having problems with mental health, money or study, we’ll get you the help you need!

Along the way we’ve also got a great program of events lined up for the year - make sure you like our Facebook page to stay in the loop!

What we’ve got planned: Free weekly yoga and Zumba, free food, stress management and study skills sessions before exams, a stress relieving petting zoo and an amazing Welfare Week!

So enjoy your first semester and make the most of your time at UWA! Cheers, Cam Fitzgerald Welfare Officer 2013 welfare@guild.uwa.edu.au facebook.com/uwastudentguildwelfare

The Guild Welfare Department offers a number of services to help you through times of hardship at Uni. Guild Student Assist Officers are here to help you!

You can email assist@guild.uwa.edu.au to get a helping hand or arrange a friendly face-to-face chat. You can contact a Student Assist officer if you: - Are experiencing difficulties with your studies - Disagree with a university decision - Want to make a complaint about: the quality of a service received, the quality of your education, the behaviour/actions of a staff member - Need assistance with financial issues - Need advice on where to go for assistance with anything from tenancy and accommodation to Centrelink - Need assistance with health and wellbeing issues Visit the support pages for more info www.guild.uwa.edu.au/support Guild Loans are interest-free loans available for Guild members experiencing financial hardship.

There are Guild Emergency Loans available for borrowing up to $200 on the spot, and Guild Interest Free Ordinary Loans for borrowing up to $1000!

Contact a Student Assist Officer or check out www.guild.uwa.edu.au/loans for more information.

FAC SOCS Fac Socs run social events for students within their faculty, as well as providing representation to Faculty and assistance on educational issues.

They can be a great resource as a first port of call because their committees are full of students who’ve studied the same units you’re doing now and know what you’re going through.

Pro-tip: Fac Soc representation is done by unit, which means the relevant Fac Soc for your broadening units may be different from your major units.

If you haven’t done so already - join your faculty society!

ALVA (Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts) facebook.com/ALVAsociety Arts Union facebook.com/pages/UWA-Arts-Union Blackstone (Law) www.blackstone.asn.au facebook.com/groups/blackstonesociety ECOMS (Economics and Commerce) www.ecoms.org.au facebook.com/ecoms Health Students’ Society www.hss-uwa.org facebook.com/groups/7767526186 Music Students’ Society www.musicstudentssociety.org facebook.com/mss.uwa Science Union (Life and Physical Sciences) www.scienceunion.org.au facebook.com/ScienceUnionUWA

SNAGS (Natural and Agricultural Sciences) facebook.com/groups/79174343744 UDSS (Dentistry) www.udss.net UEC (Engineering, Computing and Mathematics) www.uec.org.au facebook.com/universityengineersclub WAMSS (Medicine) www.wamss.org.au facebook.com/WAMSSUWA

Lectures and technology Lectures - Why? To learn things! That’s why we’re here, right?

- Where? Check out the map in your Guild Diary, or online - www.uwa.edu.au/campus-map -H andy tip!! Don’t buy textbooks yet! Wait for advice from your lecturers! The libraries will have copies of textbooks on closed reserve!

-H andy tip!! You probably won’t have tutes and labs in your first week! Check your timetable!

Technology -C heck your student email ALL the time, all the important stuff will go there! mail.student.uwa.edu.au - LMS will have a bunch of unit information for you, but ultimately listen to lecturer for where they’re posting unit content online! www.lms.uwa.edu.au - Lectopia records some (most) of your lectures!

Links in LMS. - If you have problems with Unifi, ask at a tech helpdesk in a library!

Parking and Eats Food on campus - Ref (Guild Village) - Guild Cafe (Guild Village) - Hackett Cafe - Reid Library Cafe - Science Library Cafe - Business School Cafe - The Tav! - Free microwaves in the Ref and Guild Cafe (and in some Fac Soc common rooms) - RocketFuel coffee - Chilliz for super cheap eatz, Broadway for other options Parking - First years can’t get parking permits for oncampus parking!

- Walk / ride / skate if you’re close enough! There are plenty of bike racks around campus, including a new Electric Bike Shed near the Rec Centre you’ll need to apply for access to that one through UniPark.

- You can generally find free parking for various amounts of time on streets West of the campus, approximately 10 minute walk away.

- Catch the bus. 78, 79, 23, 102 or 107 from the City, 99 from the North, 98 or 103 from the South and 97 for the Subi crew.

UWA Student life Pro-tip: Meet your friends on Oak Lawn at 1pm on Tuesdays for common lunch, and get tickets to all the upcoming club events! Or try hanging on James Oval, just watch out for frisbees and cricket!

On top of the various welfare assistance that your Guild provides, UWA has a bunch of other oncampus services.

There is a doctor on campus who will bulk bill, a dentist (upstairs in the Guild Village), an optometrist (ground floor of Guild Village) and UWA Student Services provides counselling.

UWA has webpages to help with housing, financial assistance, childcare, on-campus security, transport and insurance, among other things (study abroad!).

For more information on UWA Student life, visit the following web page: www.student.uwa.edu.au/life

Links and contacts For chats and more info email 2013 Welfare Officer, Cam Fitzgerald welfare@guild.uwa.edu.au For more Guild related goodness, visit www.guild.uwa.edu.au and like www.facebook.com/uwastudentguild To view the full version of the Student Survival Guide, visit www.guild.uwa.edu.au/ studentsurvivalguide Lost? www.uwa.edu.au/campus-map

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