In your first study period, you might find the demands of study challenging because you are new to the university environment. We've designed lots of resources to help you adjust, including written resources that will help you build your skills, teams of staff and students you can chat to, and tips for tackling your first assessment and coping with stress.

Study Support Guides

To succeed at your studies, it’s important to develop your academic skills. Academic skills are things like planning your work, conducting research, critical thinking, note taking, editing your work and referencing. Strong academic skills will allow your to achieve your best at your assessments and exams: they’ll help you produce high-quality work and uphold academic integrity.

Academic skills will naturally develop over the course of your degree, but you can also actively build them by using the following resources on offer at Deakin.

Our Study Support Guides are articles that explain these academic skills in detail, such as essay writing, group work, communicating online and critical thinking. If you’re unsure where to start on an assignment (see essay writing, report writing and oral presentations) or you want to prepare for what’s ahead (see communicating online, note-taking and managing your workload), these guides provide a fantastic foundation for the work you’re about to undertake.

Study resources

If you are feeling unsure about aspects of your studies, we are here to help. We provide free support services and resources to help you maximise your chances of study success. The following teams of people are ready and waiting to help you with your academic work, so don’t hesitate to reach out and ask a question.

• You can make an appointment with our Study Support team. A staff member will help you understand your assessment tasks and can provide feedback on planning, researching, writing and revising.
• You can chat with a Maths Mentor or a Writing Mentor, trained students with experience in and passion for their area who host online drop-in sessions. They can talk you through a particular aspect of your work you need help with.
• You can use our online tutoring and writing feedback service Studiosity, which offers 24/7 real-time tutoring or writing feedback within 24 hours.
• Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) are online group study sessions for tough units where you can work alongside other students – search for your unit and see if there’s a PASS session for it now.
• The Library has librarians available to help you with questions you might have about accessing resources. You can email a librarian from your area of study, or use the online live chat to ask a more general question.

Soon, you’ll start working on your first assessment. Our Study Support Guide Five steps to completing assessments will show you how to tackle an assessment task by breaking it down into logical steps.

We’ve also got a great tool called the Assessment Planner. Just enter the relevant dates for your assessment and you will receive your assessment plan with a suggested time frame and helpful resources on how to approach each stage.

Stress, anxiety and time management