What is Transition?

"Transition" is the term used to describe the student experience of adjusting to university study and life, particularly during the first year. It also refers to the range of issues and emotions that students face during this transition process. All students, regardless of age, educational and cultural background and personality will be affected by issues of transition. Starting university can be a time of excitement and anticipation, but it can also be a time of anxiety and uncertainty. Among other things, students must adjust to a different style of learning and find their own way in an often daunting campus environment. Students who successfully navigate their way through the various stages of transition to university are often those who seek help and advice where necessary. Others will require greater assistance and guidance to settle in and engage with their studies and university life. Important to this success are the ways in which an institution understands the transition process, anticipates the range of problems that students encounter during this period of adjustment and provides targeted and timely support and guidance to those students who need it.

Transition at Monash

At Monash, we recognise that as an institution with over 58,000 students from diverse backgrounds spread across 8 campuses and 10 faculties that no one transition solution or response will do. Accordingly, we have a long standing commitment at the campus, faculty and support unit level to the provision of a range of transition programs to assist students to settle in and succeed at different stages of the student life cycle. It is these Monash experiences and successes that we wish to explore and celebrate at the Monash Transition Roundtable 2008.