Re-framing the ‘First Year’ Undergraduate Student Experience.

Abstract

The ‘first-year’ student experience is a critical transition period for new students. Navigating it successfully can help students in their first-year at university settle into their studies and provide a foundation for retention and success. It has traditionally focused on students entering year one of an undergraduate degree. However, due to the increased diversity in the student body and various entry routes into different levels of university study, what constitutes the firstyear student experience and the support students’ receive needs to be re-framed. This paper highlights the changes that have occurred in higher education, and puts forward a new student lifecycle to assist institutions effectively support new undergraduate students in their first-year of study and beyond across academic and non-academic activities.