2025 Challenges & Lessons Learnt by

Team culture

2025-09-25 01:05:11 UTC

Tooooooooo spicy

Backlogged Teams

2025-09-25 01:06:12 UTC

The difficulty of needing to refer students to teams who are considerably backlogged in their workload. Managing student expectations as a result

Bulk emails tricky

2025-09-25 01:07:45 UTC

Unhappy with the default formatting but should be able to fix that when I do more

Ruthless Processes

2025-09-25 01:08:17 UTC

Some university processes are ruthless and have a big impact on the student experience. E.g- auto withdrawal. Conversations with these students are difficult and often there are no solutions

Opt-out option

2025-09-25 01:08:33 UTC

No system of removing ‘opt out’ FYS students – they can block us but we can’t exclude them where requested

2025-09-25 01:09:06 UTC

Another challenge is that at times we are unable to fully support students-for example, when there are no learning adviser appointments available, or when other teams, such as the Phase Leads, don’t maintain the same standards we uphold.

2025-09-25 01:09:10 UTC

It has been difficult to learn this job whilst also trying to learn the intricacies off each faculty.

SYSTEMS

2025-09-25 01:09:27 UTC

Some students missing allocation window

2025-09-25 01:09:39 UTC

Missing later enrolled students due to manual allocation process

2025-09-25 01:10:46 UTC

Learnt a lot about the importance of data and recording thing correctly because of how manual our systems are.

Feeling unclear on expectations

2025-09-25 01:11:10 UTC

Love the flexibility surrounding our approach for UA referrals, and I feel (though need to confirm the numbers) that using an invitation text/email for students rather than cold calling had an equal to better result for engagement; but wasn’t totally sure if this completely fulfilled the expectation of our role as fyas

Email templates

2025-09-25 01:11:27 UTC

I always forget how to make an email template so often edit each one - this is probably part of working in space often by myself and not seeing if someone is available to ask for help

2025-09-25 01:12:04 UTC

I believe we’ve made good progress, though some challenges still come up in team interactions. There’s room to strengthen teamwork, collaboration, and the way we work together

UA referrals

2025-09-25 01:12:45 UTC

often students are referred by UAs when it is too late to assist them e.g the 48 hr time period to return an intention to resubmit has lapsed or there is no pathway for the student to pass the unit. These situations can often be confusing and options unclear

Convoluted Data entry and reporting

2025-09-25 01:13:25 UTC

Despite major progress in this space, the way data is collected and reported at a program level remains convoluted. What I have learnt from this in 2025 is to keep it simple, and return to basic. Less is more.

UA referrals

2025-09-25 01:15:57 UTC

UA referrals are an essential part of what we do and identifying students who need assistance, but it also feels that it is where we have the least traction.

Communication

2025-09-25 01:17:07 UTC

Although there have been challenges in approaching difficult situations within the team, it's so important to remember that we make an effort to communicate honestly, with a velvet glove, and seek the other person's highest good. Key learning 🔑

Clarity on what data is needed

2025-09-25 01:17:26 UTC

Getting deeper insight on the reporting processes really helps to ensure that we are collecting the right data in the right way as we go through our work day

Measuring Impact of Marketing

2025-09-25 01:18:33 UTC

Challenge = It’s hard to track where students come from. A click through to the booking page (recorded in email stats) doesn’t confirm that a booking has necessarily been made. Calls & emails are also difficult to link back to specific outreach activities unless the student tells us directly during our interaction.

Possible Solutions = (1) Ask the question: Add a simple “How did you hear about the FYA program?” question in the booking form. (2) Tracking links: Use tagged URLs in emails/SMS.

Communication to students

2025-09-25 01:19:18 UTC

We could look at our bulk communication and what the best approach is, so we don't bombard students with the same messaging. This can result in student disengaging from our service.

Team communication

2025-09-25 01:20:35 UTC

Some difficulties around whole team communication. At times CH and Lismore aren't aware of what is happening or can't as easily ask questions or get clarification because we aren't in the office.

Increase in ownership

2025-09-25 01:21:19 UTC

I realised through speaking with Jodie and Kte that some faculties are much more organised in the way they keep and share faculty specific information

Finding this out lets me know that there is room for improvement in some faculties/information sharing

Timeline of UARs and appts etc

2025-09-25 01:29:04 UTC

An extra 2-3 Learning Advisers would go a long way to being able to book our students in when we get them referred. It's a bit of a rock/hard place scenario when they say "yes please I would like the help" and we can't actually book them in. SCU must be aware that their terms are only 6 weeks and that implies fast turnaround on everything including referrals & appointments, yeah?