Category Archives: Student life

Everything student life – from halls and flatting to recipes, advice, reviews, fashion and travel.

Community notice, Our Community, Postgraduate study, Student life, Student Success, Study@UC

Ashleigh’s advice

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Ashleigh Johns (PhD student)

Digital assistance for your studies

Read&Write has been an excellent addition to my studies. It offers more than 18 study support features, all on a customizable floating toolbar. One of my favorites is the highlighter feature. I use it while reading course material to mark important points. At the click of a button, R&W can pull out the highlighted text portions and paste them into a Word document within a few seconds. I find this feature very helpful when there’s a lot I’d like to note down from an article, textbook, or other documents that I am reading. I also find the dictionary tool quite handy. It helps me check out the meaning of new or complex words. And if I want to rest my eyes, I can have R&W read aloud the text on my screen.

R&W has a translator tool too that can be very useful to international students.

The Assistive Technology Team runs fantastic training sessions to help students access the benefits of Read&Write and other such learning support applications.

I highly recommend R&W as an excellent learning support application.

Go ahead and enroll in an information session right now! You will be amazed to see what you can achieve with R&W!

Behaviour and Responsibilities, Community notice, Our Community, Student life, The Community, Wellbeing

Kia mataara | Think First – and party safely

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Celebrating the end of semester? Got a post-exams party planned? There are a few things you can do to look after yourself and those around you. 

Be sure to have a ‘Good One’ – register your party on Good One Party Register

Hosting a party can be a bit overwhelming. Having the Police notified means they can help as you plan, provide advice, and give you a call to ensure everyone is safe and having a good time. Find out more about how it works here. 

Benefits of registering with Good One 

  • Party knowing you have back-up if needed. 
  • Police will get rid of any unwanted guests to keep the good times rolling. 
  • Easy chats with Police as they know what’s up. 

Consider your community
Keep bottles in the bin and off the ground and turn the bass down a notch or two – your neighbours will thank you 😊   

Understand sexual consent
Sexual consent is a free and voluntary agreement to participate in sexual activity. Consent involves ongoing and mutual communication, where people can communicate their wants and their limits, and freely agree to doing things without feeling like they have to, or are being made to. Read more about sexual consent here> 

Secure your things and lock up your flat
Keep your valuable items hidden away, and double check you’ve locked your flat when you’re heading out. 

Good luck for exams, enjoy your mid-year break, and if you’re celebrating the end of semester, please take care and look after your mates.  

Our Community, Student life, Study@UC, The Community

What is academic integrity and what does it mean for you during exams?

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One of the ways to be successful ākonga at UC is through academic integrity: acting honestly, ethically, fairly and respecting others.  

A good understanding of academic integrity is crucial in supporting you to take charge and know how to avoid mistakes, especially during exams and end of term assessments.  

You can learn more about how to approach your work with academic integrity, here – in the meantime, here’s the headlines:  

Cheating
Breaking the rules for assignments or exams is treated very seriously, so it’s important to know what you can bring with you, how they will run and whether you can use equipment (like calculators), which may need to be authorised by UC in advance.  

Check out the exam instructions for more on what you need to do (or not do!): 

Do –
 – Give revision notes or other unauthorised material to a supervisor immediately, if you’ve accidentally taken them into the exam room with you. 

Don’t –  
 – Look at other students’ answers.
 – Talk or communicate in any way with other students. 

The above could result in disciplinary action. It’s just not worth it. 

Plagiarism
Plagiarism is copying materials from another source (whether it’s a quote or data) without a clear acknowledgement of where it originated. 

It’s important to properly reference your work, as your assignments are checked through Turnitin, UC’s anti-plagiarism software. Turnitin recognises and highlights where students have copied and not cited other authors’ work. 

Top tips:  

Artificial Intelligence
While AI tools like ChatGPT and CoPilot are becoming readily available, their use is strictly monitored at UC and depending on your course, may not be allowed.  

If you’re unsure whether you are able to use artificial intelligence tools for your assessments, please reach out to your Course Coordinator.  

When we work together to act honestly, ethically and respect each other and our work, we get the most out of our studies. You can learn more about academic integrity here> 

Good luck with your exams!