Summary of findings - current students

Interviews with 6x current students on Friday 17 July and Monday 20 July. 

Demographics

Year

Acknowledge need to do more interviews with postgrad students before we start that phase of work.

Gender

Responses from males very low. One male didn't show. 

Study areas

Education, Psych, Design, Law, Physics, Philosophy, Biomedical Science.

Key findings

Expectations

What were their expectations prior to coming to uni? 

Most expected it to be a big change from school.

1. Study would be self-directed, with little interaction or support.
2. The university environment would be large and impersonal.

"Coming to university was daunting."

"I thought it would be hard. That everything would be hard - meeting people, learning how the city worked. Everyone told me that lecturers don't care about you. I was a bit worried about the workload."

"I thought I was going to be a little fish in a big pond."

What was the reality?

Study

• Three students said they'd struggled with their study in the first year - the work was too hard. Two got support from Student Learning and one got support from the Faculty (including the associate Dean). 
• One other student also said she'd got a lot of support from Student Learning: "I didn't know then that there would be so much help available. I didn't know there were tutorials, I thought it would just be lectures. So it was actually way nicer." 
• One of the students that struggled commented that the different academic focus was good: "In NCEA, they tell you want to think. I got good at copying and pasting and memorising. At university, they reward you for original thought."
  
  

Life

• All of the students had found it easy to make new friends. "I enjoyed meeting so many people from all over New Zealand."
• Three students commented that the awhina programme had been wonderful to be involved in.
• However, the Masters student finds her current situation very lonely - see notes further down.

Choosing Victoria

Three students commented that the face-to-face contact they'd had with someone from Vic while at school had been influential in their choice (eg, outreach visit to school, info evening, 'Vic rep') .

 "If someone talks about something and they are charismatic and they've got that energy then you want to go there."

Channels

Preferred channels (student could nominate more than one)

All students use Facebook and get uni information that way. Two commented that they try to not be on Facebook a lot. "I don't want to be one of those people on their phones all the time."

Students generally commented that they get too many emails. "Email bombardment." Sign up options should be more granular. They want to get information about only what is of interest to them.

Three students said they use the screens just for finding out the time. 

Vic website

Only one student had made use of the 'Current students' hub - and this was because her boyfriend had prompted her to explore the info. 

Students identified three tasks they'd go to the main Victoria website for:

• Finding information on courses
• Search for lecturers and find their offices
• shortcuts in header menu (eg, MyVic, Library, BB)

One  student also said she'd use it to contact someone.

There was a bit of greyness between the Vic site and F&S sites. 

Wants

Info on PG study requirements

Profiles from past students, perhaps covering what their expectations were and were they met? x2

Difficult to use

I would email someone, it's so much easier than using the website.

Only for school leavers

"The homepage is geared heavily towards people who don't yet study at Vic. Some uni websites are exciting because they cover what stydents are doing. I like to see where people have been taken and what happens to them after graduation." x2

Content unreliable

Three students commented that they don't trust the website content to be accurate / up to date.

"After looking at papers online I often send an email to someone. I can't rely on the website, I don't feel like it's up to date. I feel like I can't trust the website."

The Masters student commented that the student featured on the homepage of the School of Psychology site (Ben) left three years ago.

Faculty and schools sites

• They just want to find the right person to talk to. This is usually at the bottom of the page. 
• Most had never looked at the F&S site homepages. They found internal pages via search.

Vic website, Faculty site, School site - really confusing. Everything should be on the main site. Schools, faculties and Vic should all be one. We are all one university. I don't see why it can't all be the same thing.

Staff profiles

Room number

Research interests useful when choosing a supervisor if doing PG

Information needs

overview of where you're heading and what skills you'll have at the end.

Future planning - postgrad and jobs

Course finder

• Wish it was easier to get from Current Students to Course Finder. "Sometimes you have to pretend (online) that you don't go here to get information."

News and events

• Like hearing about big news that lifts the university - nice to have something to brag about. Most follow VUW FB page for that. 
• Interested in things like talks about research subjects, but get the details in lecturers, from posters - they don't go looking for it online. 

Masters student

Talked about the Masters' experience: postgrad Masters students are isolated and lonely. They will be in their own office with maybe one other. Would like a hub or network or something.

Lack of info on what is required (after enrolment). 

"When you start putting it together in the last few months, that's when you realise how much you don't know." (about the process). Needs info about what's expected. "Existing info can contradict itself."

Key points

• They can tell when something seems out-of-date, and they lose trust in the site.
• Undergraduates only use F&S sites for staff information. They aren't looking at the homepages.
• Even the most engaged students are not interested the news F&Ss produce. They do like to hear big uni news though.
• Appearance of F&S pages in search results are very confusing for them. 
• Can't understand why information is spread between a 'main' site and F&S sites. Wish it was all in one place.