02 Jul 2017

Uni is a weird thing to transition into. Whether you’ve just finished school, or taken a gap year or 6, the change is going to be big. No more spoon feeding, 10,000 students instead of 800 and a giant maze-like campus.

Every uni has an Open Day, and it’s totally worth going to. It’s a good way to get comfortable with the space before you make commitments. Griffith’s Open Day is set to be a banger, and here’s why you should probably note it in your diary to check them out on Sunday July 23:

1. To scope the campuses

Griffith has five campuses, which are each unique in their own way. On Open Day you can explore three of these—the Gold Coast, Nathan and South Bank—and find out more about Mt Gravatt and Logan while you’re there. Before you actually make a decision about where you want to go, Open Day is a great chance to check out the campuses and see if you like the vibe.

The Gold Coast is Griffith’s largest campus, and offers degrees in areas like health, science, engineering, IT, humanities, education and teaching, business and government, visual and creative arts and popular music. Make sure you sus out their health and business faculties and their brand spankin’ new Aquatic Centre when you’re there.

Nathan offers similar degrees to the Gold Coast, with physiotherapy and occupational therapy being introduced there in 2018 as well.

South Bank is Griffith’s cultural and creative hub. Essentially, it’s the place to be if you wanna specialise in music and performing arts or creative fields like animation, film, fine art, photography or games design. On Open Day, you can sus out the degrees and facilities at the Queensland Conservatorium, the Queensland College of Art and the Griffith Film School.

 2. To hear about their new courses on offer

Griffith has a bunch of stuff happening in 2018, including new double degrees combining business with creative media, photography, fine art or environmental science, or engineering with computer science or aviation. There’s also new social science and acting degrees.

If you’re not sure exactly what you want to study and which campus actually offers the degree you’re after, have a quick browse on their study search site here.

3. To network

It’s not surprising that the people who make solid friendships at university are more likely to stay there and finish their degrees. Open Day is a good place to network, make friends and check out the awesome selection of clubs. Griffith also has a foundation first year for a bunch of degrees, which means you get to test out different interest areas before you choose your specialisation. As well as helping you find your feet at uni, the foundation year means you get to know the people you’ll be studying with for the next three or four years.

 4. To talk to actual people

Personally, I would much prefer to talk to someone in person about what I can expect from university, rather than reading all the information online. Open Day is your opportunity to go and ask all those burning questions that you’ve been wondering about for ages.  You can talk to the teachers you’ll learn from, and also current students who can tell you about their experiences at Griffith.

 5. To apply

There’s an old joke that applying for university is so complicated that only those who have degrees are able to figure out how to do it. Obviously the application process has been simplified and made more efficient over the years, but at Open Day, there are people on hand to help you through it.