Adjusting to university life

The transition from high school to university marks a major change for many teens—with new friends, subjects, campuses, teachers and maybe even living arrangements. It can be lot to process, but there’s lots you can do as a parent or guardian to support your teen and help ensure their success.

Attending O-Week

One of the easiest ways to help your teen adjust to university life is to encourage them to attend Orientation Week (O-Week). Usually held in the first week before classes, O-Week will give your teen the opportunity to meet other students, get to know their campus and classrooms, and have a little fun.

There’s also some important housekeeping business for them to attend to, like collecting their student ID card, ensuring they’re properly enrolled and attending study skills workshops and academic sessions.

During O-Week, your teen will have the opportunity to talk to Orientation Week Leaders (OWLs), both on campus and online. These current Griffith students, volunteer their time to help new students, answering questions about life at Griffith, providing directions and easing the transition into university.

To ensure your teen doesn’t miss a thing, Griffith offers a handy O-Week Planner, so they can check out what’s on and make a schedule to suit. There’s a range of mandatory and optional sessions, and it’s important to keep track of what they need to attend.

Keeping on track

The newfound independence of university life comes with plenty of challenges, particularly for teens fresh from the relatively structured high school environment. While they’ll still have a timetable of classes and tutorials they’ll need to attend, the onus will be on them to make sure that they’re on time and ready to learn. Similarly, with exams and assignments, much more responsibility will lie with your teen when it comes to staying on track for success.

While there’s no single method that works for everyone, there are some basic principles that are almost universally helpful.

To start, encourage your teen to use a planner to mark out important academic, extracurricular and personal events. These can be exam blocks, planned holidays, sporting competitions or work commitments. From there, they can drill down further by month and by week—and even by day if necessary—making tasks and deadlines to ensure they stay on top of everything.

Parents and guardians of procrastinating teens should also look into the Pomodoro Technique. Developed in the 1980s, this productivity booster involves breaking up work into intervals, typically 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. The goal is to minimise the effect of internal and external interruptions of focus and flow, allowing the user to devote themselves more fully to the task at hand.

For more on time management strategies and methods, the Griffith Library has a page on the topic that’s packed with helpful information.

Trying new things

University will offer your teen almost unlimited opportunities to meet new people and try new activities, both academic and extracurricular, which can be empowering—particularly following the relatively rigid structure of high school. Finding friends to confide in can help your teen adjust to university life faster, as well as make them more resilient in the face of everyday challenges and adversity. It can also allow them to branch out into fresh interests and experiences.

Griffith is home to a huge variety of clubs, groups and societies that revolve around everything from shared academic interests to sports and popular culture. It’s well worth it for your teen to take part in any that catch their eye, as they’re a great way to make like-minded friends and explore potential passions.

Getting support

It’s a reasonable expectation that your teen is going to have at least a little anxiety about the transition to university life. If they’ve moved out for the first time, they may well be feeling homesick as well. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to check in occasionally to see how they’re going.

That said, it’s just as important to let them strike out and experience things on their own, so don’t go overboard. An occasional phone call or text message is enough to let them know you’re there to help, so they can reach out if they need to talk.

You could also encourage them to keep in contact with old school friends. Even if they don’t attend the same university, this existing network often provides a great source of support and comfort, particularly if your teen is feeling the strain of a new environment and social circles.