By CASEY NEILL
DANDENONG High School students have received a taste of university life to encourage them into higher education.
More than 200 year 11s visited RMIT’s city campus on 27 November for a Tertiary Experience Day as part of the university’s I Belong program.
The days give students from Schools Network Access Program (SNAP) the chance to explore a tertiary learning environment and discover what is possible through further study.
SNAP students receive priority access to RMIT programs upon graduation.
“It’s a brilliant program,” the school’s careers counsellor Jo Gleeson said.
“They’ve done quite a lot of research into students and found that even if they don’t get the ATAR score for the course, they do just as well as other kids in the course.
“That’s really great for our kids.”
This was the second time the school had participated in the program.
Ms Gleeson said the day started with an information session about the different pathways and opportunities at RMIT.
“RMIT is a TAFE and a university as well. All of our kids can find a place at RMIT,” she said.
Students then took part in workshops covering learning styles, memory, technology and time management.
Ms Gleeson said the best session was a mathematics professor’s presentation about career paths based on maths.
“He was brilliant. The kids were coming out going ‘this is awesome’, ‘I’m so glad I’m doing maths’, ‘I’m inspired’,” she said.
RMIT student ambassadors helped the high school students navigate the campus and sessions.
“The kids get a chance to talk to the ambassador about how they got there,” she said.
The day ended with a quiz in the same vein as Channel 9 game show Millionaire Hot Seat.
“It was a way to reinforce some of the information they learnt throughout the day,” she said.
“The guy who ran that was really funny so the kids were really engaged.”
Ms Gleeson said the day had made university more accessible for the students.
“Even though we might tell them 4 million times… it becomes real when they’re there and hearing it from ex-RMIT students and current RMIT students,” she said.
“Some of them had never been into the city before.
“It’s about visualising themselves there in 12 months’ time.
“This year’s experience was extraordinary, how good it was. We’ll be definitely heading back next year.”
The I Belong program is working towards the Federal Government’s 2020s aim that 20 per cent of undergraduates are from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
