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 develop strong connections with staff and other students, reducing their risk of social isolation. Some will require greater assistance and guidance to settle in and engage with their studies and university life. Important to successful transition 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 University

At Monash University, we recognise that as an institution with over 58,000 students from diverse backgrounds spread across 8 campuses and 10 faculties that no single transition solution or response will suffice. 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 experiences and successes that we wish to share and discuss new challenges at the 2009 Transition Retention and Progression Forum.

Addressing the Themes at the Forum

With the release of the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon Julia Gillard MP, has called for major structural reform of the sector, declaring that by 2025, 40 % of all 25-34 year olds will have a qualification at bachelor level or above and that by 2020, 20 % of higher education enrolments at undergraduate level should be of people from low socio-economic backgrounds (16 % at present). The primary aim of the 2009 Transition Retention and Progression Forum is to address the challenges set out by the Government to provide a platform for Monash staff, along with staff from Victorian universities and secondary schools to share ideas, successful initiatives and expertise about the broad range of transition-related strategies to support students. Transition issues faced by international students and under-represented groups in higher education such as those from low socio-economic and indigenous backgrounds, and those from regional locations will be of primary focus at this year’s Forum.