The CQUniversity Bundaberg campus has welcomed new students back to campus this week as part of its new student orientation program.
More than 200 new students participated in orientation week activities ahead of Term 1 with various online and on-campus information sessions, and social activities delivered.
This is the first time in 12 months that orientation activities for new students have been held on-campus, since COVID-19 forced the University’s Term 2 and 3 programs online last year.
In 2021, the University planned a program that combined popular on-campus and online sessions and activities, so that students could design a program to suit their needs.
As part of the new program, students had the opportunity view essential sessions through the Orientation TV (OTV) platform and could also opt-in to participate in several online ‘Boost’ sessions to connect them with information and initiatives that will help them to enhance their individual study journey and university experience.
On-campus introduction and social activities were also planned across the university footprint including attractions such as campus tours, live music, games, market stalls, giveaways, photobooths and food.
Associate Vice-President of the CQUniversity Wide Bay Burnett region, Mr Luke Sinclair said that university staff were looking forward to students returning to campus in 2021.
“We are looking forward to welcoming our new and existing students back to campus.
“The COVID situation in 2020 forced universities to transition their delivery to online for much of last year.
“It is great that we will soon start to experience a more normal life on campus.
“For us at CQUniversity, this essentially means we are going back to our pre-pandemic delivery model that includes both on-campus and online delivery (depending on the unit and course of study a student is enrolled in),” Mr Sinclair said.
He also explained that the return to campus would be done in a COVID safe way to help protect the health and wellbeing of all staff and students.
“We will manage the return to campus in 2021 in COVID safe way with classes scheduled in rooms to accommodate social distancing wherever possible, and extra hygiene resources such as hand sanitiser and wipes available around campus.”
The top five courses in the region for Term 1 are Bachelor of Nursing, Bachelor of Education (Secondary), Bachelor of Physiotherapy, Bachelor of Education (Primary) and Bachelor of Paramedic Science.
Overall new student numbers across the entire university footprint are up by around 30 percent on 2020 figures.
The most in demand undergraduate courses across the entire CQUniversity regional footprint are nursing, paramedic science, medical science, IT and business.
The new CQUniversity term officially starts on Monday, 8 March with thousands of new and returning students commencing their studies.