Welcome and what this session covers

G'day, and welcome to the National Virtual Expo. I'm your host, Rob Malicki, and welcome to this session on the University of Canberra. Today I am on Gadigal land in Sydney, and I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land. This is beautiful country in Sydney, and I'm super grateful for the millennia of careful, methodical care that's been put into this land.

Before I get started, let me tell you what's coming up in the next 20 minutes or so. If you're joining me live, thank you so much for being here. If you've got questions, make sure you drop them in the chat and I'll do my best to get to them throughout this session. If you're watching this as a replay, you can ask your questions in the Choosing Your Uni Discord. We've set that up specifically so that regardless of how specific or personal those questions are, or how broad they might be, you can get an answer. The Choosing Your Uni Discord details are in the session notes below.

In this session we're going to be talking about what the University of Canberra is known for, who would do well studying at UC, and you'll hear from some students who've actually studied there. We're going to find out about its academic strengths, then dive into the data: student satisfaction, graduate employment rates and salaries, and global rankings. I'm going to unpack that for you, because there's a lot of hype around data and rankings and a lot of marketing speak, so I want to take you behind the scenes to find out which of those metrics should really matter to you. And finally, I'm going to help you build your shortlist of which universities you should be comparing UC against.

Before we get started, I'd like to acknowledge our major presenting sponsor, Southern Cross University. This whole virtual expo wouldn't have been possible without them.

What makes UC distinctive, and who it may not suit

Here's something that most people don't know. The University of Canberra is ranked in the top ten in the entire world for reducing inequality. Not the top ten in Australia. The top ten on the planet. That's from the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, which measure how universities contribute to solving real-world problems. For a university that most people outside of Canberra haven't spent much time thinking about, that's genuinely a remarkable result.

Now, a bit of a pivot. Who is this university not for? If you want a massive campus with 50,000 students and the buzz that comes with that kind of scale, UC has about 10,000 to 11,000 students and it's compact, community-sized. Some people may find that's too small and too quiet, and that's fine. Choosing a university is about knowing yourself and knowing what you're looking for. If that kind of large-scale experience is what you're after, UC might not suit.

Likewise, if you're looking for one of those traditional, prestigious, research-intensive Group of Eight universities, the sandstone universities, places like ANU, the University of Sydney, or the University of Melbourne, well, UC isn't that either. It's applied, it's practical, and it makes no apology for being career-focused from day one.

And Canberra as a city might not appeal to you either. It's not Sydney, it's not Melbourne. It's a planned, mid-sized city built largely around government. Some people love that. Honestly, I love Canberra. I think it's an incredible destination. It's quiet compared to the big cities, it's got a great outdoor lifestyle, and it's got heaps of cultural institutions to engage with. But if you're looking for that big inner-city experience, Canberra isn't going to give you that.

What students say about studying at UC

Before we go on, here's some context from a student who's actually studied at UC. Remember, this is just one experience, but it starts to give you an indication of what students say are some of the strengths of studying at this institution.

The student describes the atmosphere as calm and relaxed: "It's not as intense as other universities. I've been to the Western Sydney University campus in Parramatta, and that one was just very busy 24/7. A lot of places like UTS, Sydney, and UNSW in the city, the campuses are split everywhere, so you're constantly rushing down different streets to get to different buildings for classes. You see, UC is quite compact and interconnected, and I really like that."

Three things you need to know about the University of Canberra

There are three things I think you need to know about UC. The first is that it's built around you getting employed. This is a university that takes work-integrated learning really seriously across its programmes. If you're studying teaching, you're in schools. If you're studying nursing or allied health, you're in clinics and hospitals, including the University of Canberra Hospital, which literally sits on campus. If you're in IT, you've got access to the Open Source Institute, which is a partnership between the university and tech company NetApp, plus the ACT Government giving students real industry projects while they study. Even in subjects like business and communication, placements and industry projects are baked into the degree structure. This isn't a university that waits until you finish your degree to get you into the real world. It starts early and it's embedded into many programmes.

Secondly, the sport and health ecosystem is genuinely unusual. This campus is home to UC RISE, the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise, which has an environmental chamber that can simulate extreme heat, extreme cold, and humidity, and that is used for research into human performance. Professional sporting teams train at UC, including the ACT Brumbies rugby union side and the UC Capitals in the Women's National Basketball League. So if you're interested in sports science, exercise physiology, or sports management, UC punches well above its weight. You're not just studying sport, you're studying alongside elite athletes and researchers working in purpose-built facilities.

Third is its location. Being placed in Canberra, depending on what you want to do, can be a genuine strategic advantage. Canberra is, of course, Australia's capital. There are federal government agencies, national cultural institutions, embassies, and political think tanks. If you're interested in public policy, government, politics, or law and justice, studying in Canberra puts you closer to the machinery of Australian democracy than basically anywhere else. UC leans into this hard. Its Faculty of Business, Government and Law is designed around that proximity. Students get placements and project opportunities with government agencies far more readily than students at other universities. UC's communications area is also particularly strong, and if you're interested in business, communications, and potentially working in government, those are areas where UC is certainly very strong.

Academic strengths: health, education, science, and technology

UC runs five faculties: arts and design, business, government and law, education, health, and science and technology. It's not a university trying to be everything for everyone. The focus is on professional degrees that lead to specific careers.

The health faculty is probably UC's biggest drawcard. Nursing, physiotherapy, exercise science, public health, and occupational therapy are all strong enrolment areas, and they're supported by something most universities can't match: a teaching hospital on campus. The University of Canberra Hospital is a specialist rehabilitation and subacute care facility. Important to note it's not a major hospital with an emergency department. It's subacute. But for health students, that means your clinical placements can literally be a five-minute walk from your lecture. The Health Research Institute runs alongside this, doing applied research in public health, mental health, and health equity, so the people teaching you have current research under their belt.

Education is another strength. UC trains a significant proportion of the ACT's teachers, with placement networks embedded across Canberra's school system. The STEM Education Research Centre does fascinating work on how kids learn spatial thinking and mathematics, including a dedicated lab called the Splat Lab. That is an actual name, and it stands for Spatial Play Learning and Teaching. If you're interested in becoming a teacher who actually understands the science of learning, UC takes that very seriously.

In environmental science, UC runs the National eDNA Research Centre, which traces genetic material left behind in water, soil, and air to monitor biodiversity and detect invasive species. That might sound esoteric, but it's absolutely cutting-edge conservation work with real policy applications. For tech students, the Open Source Institute is really worth knowing about. That partnership gives students hands-on experience with open source software projects and data science in a professional setting.

And I keep coming back to sport because it really is distinctive at UC. The UC RISE programme doesn't just study sports science in theory. That environmental chamber for testing how athletes perform under stress is groundbreaking, cutting-edge stuff. Researchers there work on concussion, injury prevention, and athlete recovery alongside professional sporting teams. If sport and exercise is your thing, this is a facility that genuinely puts UC on the map.

Flexibility in study delivery

A quick note on UC and flexibility. UC offers blended and online delivery across a range of programmes, and some coursework is available in intensive or block mode. That gives you flexibility in the way you study your degree.

More student voices: life on campus

Let's hear from some more students about what it's like studying at UC.

One student shares a study tip: "If you want to do all-nighters, go to the library any time after 5 or 6 p.m. That's when everyone goes home. You can go in any time and the library's basically empty. They have these group study rooms. Sometimes I go there with my partner and we just book the room for the entire night. It's so comfortable compared to studying in my room because then the bed is there as a temptation."

Another student talks about a little moment of joy: "If you're looking for just a little bit of joy at the end of your day, around 5 or 6 o'clock, walk towards the park or towards Belconnen. There's a little family of kangaroos that jump across. You just stop and watch them frolic. That gives me so much joy. Just seeing the joeys with their mums jumping about, taking it in. That'll brighten your day."

Graduate employment, student satisfaction, and salary data

Let's have a look at what the numbers actually say. UC talks a big game when it comes to employability. Does the data back that up?

Some of the data I'm going to present comes from the Australian Government's QILT dataset. We've got a whole session on the QILT data and the ComparED website, with details in the session description. This is great data. You can trust it. It's real students talking about their real experiences, and real employers giving numbers about graduates. It's a genuinely useful resource for comparing institutions.

Let's look at student satisfaction first. UC sits at 72.7% on the Student Experience Survey. That's below the national average. I think it's honest to say it's not a standout result for a university that prides itself on being supportive and community-oriented. It suggests there's a gap between what UC is aiming for and what some students are actually experiencing. I'll talk about how to interpret that number in a moment.

Teaching quality tells a similar story. It's a solid but not sector-leading number. UC isn't getting the satisfaction scores you'd expect from a smaller, more personal institution.

But here's where it shifts. Graduate employment. UC graduates have a full-time employment rate of 85.3%. That's well above the national average, and it's higher than every single one of the Group of Eight universities bar one. For a mid-range university in Canberra, that's UC outperforming Australia's most prestigious institutions on a metric that arguably matters the most: whether or not you get a job. There are two main reasons for that. First, the work-integrated learning that connects students to employers before they graduate. Second, Canberra's labour market, which is heavily driven by government and consistently has low unemployment.

Now, you do need to drill into the details, because not every subject area is the same. A university can perform less well on overall student satisfaction at 72-73% but perform much better in individual subject areas. It's always critical with rankings and data to look into what's actually relevant to you. If the health sciences area is strong and that's what you want to study, that's what matters. The easiest way to do that: jump on the Choosing Your Uni website and chat with our AI agent. It'll find the relevant data for you and compare it with other institutions.

Now, median graduate salary. At $71,000, that's competitive. It's mid-pack, not the highest, but comfortably above the national median. That's partly about the Canberra economy: government and businesses in Canberra tend to pay well at entry level.

Global rankings: what they do and don't tell you

In terms of global rankings, UC sits between 450th and 500th in the world in both the QS and the Times Higher Education Rankings, which makes it 27th in Australia on the QS rankings. I'm not going to pretend that's a headline-grabbing number. But you need to understand what these global rankings are actually measuring. They weigh heavily on research output and international reputation. So UC, with its smaller size and smaller research footprint, isn't going to rank as highly as large, famous universities like ANU or the University of Melbourne.

What those global headline numbers don't reflect is the quality of education you'll actually receive and your employment prospects after graduating. That's exactly why the QILT and ComparED data is so valuable. You can explore all of this on the Choosing Your Uni platform.

Which universities should you compare UC against?

To wrap up, I want to compare UC with some other institutions, because you should never assess a university in isolation. Let's look at at least three that make obvious comparison points, including some you might not have considered.

First and foremost, the Australian National University. ANU is of course the other institution in Canberra. It's a member of the Group of Eight, it ranks highly on a global scale, and it's the prestige option. But, importantly, UC beats ANU on graduate employment, and UC's campus culture is very different. It's more relaxed and a little further from the city centre. ANU is the choice if you want that traditional research university experience. UC is the option if you're thinking about career-focused learning and a tighter community. Same city, but genuinely different experiences. We've got a whole session on ANU as part of the virtual expo.

Another comparison point, looking further afield, is Deakin University in Victoria. Hear me out on this, because Deakin shares some of UC's DNA. It's a younger university, very career-focused. It has great student satisfaction scores where UC perhaps performs a little less well, and in some fields of study it has a very similar footprint to UC. If you're looking interstate but not too far, Deakin is worth a look.

I'd also look at QUT in Brisbane. A very practical institution, very focused on industry engagement and getting you in front of employers, with an incredible footprint across different fields of study. Warm environment too, if that's your thing. There's a whole session on QUT as part of the virtual expo.

And one more: Charles Sturt University. Charles Sturt has a campus in Canberra and is built around professional degrees in teaching, health, policing, and agriculture. It also has Australia's highest graduate employment rate, at around 91%. So if what attracts you to UC is that employment focus, Charles Sturt takes that model and pushes it even further. It is primarily in regional New South Wales, which might not suit everyone. Canberra strikes a good balance between city and region. But if you're looking for even more access to regional communities, Charles Sturt is worth a look.

Audience questions: choosing UC over ANU, and mature-age entry

I've got a couple of minutes to take some pre-submitted questions. The first one is: "UC seems to be overshadowed by ANU in Canberra. Is there any reason to choose UC over ANU?"

Honestly, yes, there are lots of reasons. The first is that practical element: getting in with employers, building practical skills, UC's focus on employment-ready degrees. Those are really good reasons to choose UC over ANU. In fields like health, education, and design, UC genuinely performs well. Communications is particularly strong. And also think about the campus experience you're looking for. UC is chilled out, relaxed, a tight community. If that's the environment you want, that's a pretty good reason in itself.

The second question is more general: "Is mature-age entry harder than coming straight out of school?"

Mature-age entry applies to students who aren't going straight from school into uni. If you've taken a six-month or 12-month break after high school, you're generally considered a mature-age student. Honestly, it's sometimes easier to get into university that way, because there are dedicated entry pathways specifically for mature-age students. The adjustment can be juggling study alongside other commitments like family or work, depending on your situation.

But here's what the data shows us: mature-age students consistently outperform students who went straight from high school, because they're there entirely by choice and they don't take the opportunity for granted. Returning to study is a fantastic option. On average, people who've studied at university earn 54% more than people who haven't. That metric alone should make you think seriously about it. University also opens doors, exposes you to different subject areas, and connects you with people from all walks of life. It does that in a way that very little else does.

Wrapping up

I'm out of time. I'm sorry if you asked a question in the chat that I didn't get to. I will answer all of those in the Discord community, so make sure you jump in there. We've got real people in there providing independent advice. Parents, we also have a Facebook community, and the link is in the description below.

That concludes our session on the University of Canberra. I'm Rob Malicki. I look forward to seeing you throughout the virtual expo. Have yourself an awesome day. Take care.