Academic Progression and Staying on Track

The Staying on Track Program

We have designed the Staying on Track program to help you perform to your academic potential. The program helps us recognise if and when you are experiencing difficulty meeting the minimum academic progression requirements for your degree and provide you with a wide range of support services to assist with their ongoing studies.

The Student Affairs website has full details on our academic progression policies and the Staying on Track program

The policy explains that exclusion from the University is the ultimate consequence of several semesters of not meeting the academic progression requirements. We want to help you take immediate action to improve your academic performance and make an informed decision about your academic future well before that stage is reached.

Our suggestions to Civil Engineering students

• Making a substantial change to academic performance is challenging, but it is possible. However it does require significant changes to your approach to study
• Many students experience issues that affect their academic performance. These issues may relate to areas such as performance anxiety, career uncertainty, lack of motivation, financial pressures, relationship problems or family expectations. Nearly everyone experiences situations like these during their lives, and there should be no embarrassment or shame about experiencing difficulties. We encourage you to take advantage of the range of student support services to help you with your academic and career decisions.
• We suggest you re-assess your approach to your academic endeavours. Are you using your time effectively? Could you perform better by reading notes before the lecture or creating a study group with your friends? Should you consider a reduced enrolment next semester? Our performance advice resources may help you.
• Students should assess their approach to study - are their current methods effective? The first step is ensuring you can achieve close to 100% attendance at lectures and tutorials. We have produced some tips for effective study.
• You should follow our enrolment rules by avoiding enrolling in too many units of study or units for which you have not understood the assumed knowledge. You are obliged to re-enrol in any core units you did not pass in precedence above any other unit.
• You should ensure that you dedicate sufficient time each week for academic purposes and avoid excessive conflict with work, sporting and social activities. Studying engineering is like a full-time job, and you should allocate approximately 36-40 hours a week to university work (9-10 hours per 6 credit point unit - lectures, tutorials plus at home work).
• Students are encouraged to seek and follow the advice of their academic advisors.
• Is Civil Engineering what you really want do? Often lack of motivation is a key factor affecting performance. Students are sometimes pressured by family or friends to persue a field of study. Speak to family, friends, counsellors or mentors - there is nothing wrong in making a career or degree change.

How to respond to a show cause letter

• Be honest with yourself.
• A Show Good Cause letter should outline the circumstances which have negatively affected the student’s performance in their studies, the specific effects or impacts of those circumstances, and the solutions that the student has undertaken, or will undertake, to address each of these circumstances – with a view to ensuring that they will not impact in a similar manner in the future. Documentary evidence (such as medical certification, police reports or Statutory Declarations), as appropriate, must be provided where relevant to support the Show Good Cause response.
• If a student is permitted to show good cause more than once, subsequent Show Good Cause letters should indicate whether previously-identified factors affecting academic progression have recurred, including reasons why previous strategies to address these factors have not been effective.