Welcome and what was covered in the previous session

Rob: Welcome back to the National Virtual Expo. Thank you for joining us. We're going to be talking about your degree, your way, essentially online learning at the University of Southern Queensland. I just love the flexibility that students have these days. For those who might have missed our last session together, what were we talking about in our last recording? People can find that in the session catalogue, linked down in the description below.

Guest: Welcome back. Thank you for having me again. It's great to be here. So in our last session we were talking about why UniSQ: why you would choose to study with us, where our campuses are, what degrees we offer, and what different pathway opportunities we have available to students. Definitely recommend checking that out if you're curious to know more about us.

Rob: If you missed that session, you'll find it in the session catalogue via the link down below. If you're joining us live, thank you for joining us. Feel free to drop your questions in the chat. Everybody will get an answer to all of their questions. If we don't get to them during the live stream, we will be answering everything on the Choosing Your Uni Discord. Sign-up details are in the description below. If you're a parent, we have a Facebook community as well, and all questions will be reposted there with answers. This is a really important topic because higher education, and particularly the current government, has a big agenda around increasing equity and increasing access. Online study is an important part of that for students who can't necessarily have an on-campus experience. Let's get into your presentation, and if I see opportunities to contribute along the way, I'll jump in.

Guest: Absolutely. Thank you again for having us for this session. We're going to have a good look at what online study looks like at UniSQ. I'm very proud to say that this is one of our specialisations and something we've been doing for a very long time. I work in the national student recruitment team here at UniSQ, but I have also just started my own studies here in the Master of Business Administration, and I'm doing that 100% online. So I'm myself experiencing the flexibility, and it's already been fantastic, especially managing full-time work with study. Really keen to explore this topic further with you all.

Guest: I'd like to start by acknowledging the First Nations peoples of Southern Queensland and their ongoing connection to country, lands, and waterways. We pay deep respect to elders, past and present, and we acknowledge that our places and our lands have always been lands of teaching, research, and learning for tens of thousands of years.

UniSQ's campuses and four decades of distance education

Guest: You may be familiar with our campuses, but just in case you're not, UniSQ has three locations: our Toowoomba campus, our Ipswich campus, and our Springfield campus. Often considered our fourth location, though, is online, because as I said, this is something we've been doing for a really long time. We've been offering flexible learning solutions to our students and offering distance learning for over 40 years. My dad actually did his masters via distance education when we were living out west. He had his course materials mailed to him and picked up the phone to talk to his teaching staff. So this is something we were doing long before COVID, and we've now been able to transition that into the online space and offer really quality teaching and student support online.

Guest: 75% of our students are online. So if you choose to study online with us, you're certainly not alone. There is a huge community of students you can interact with and network with. I'm already finding that in my own studies through the consultation course I'm doing: I'm getting to meet people from all over the country that I wouldn't have otherwise met, and people from a lot of different industries, because online learning has allowed them to balance their work in, say, the mining industry or engineering with their studies. That has been really great.

The three study modes: on campus, external, and fully online

Guest: We also have a lot of choice when it comes to online learning, with over 130 online degrees to choose from. When you're exploring your study options you'll come across our different study modes, so I thought I would explain the differences. We have on-campus study mode, where you'll be on campus for all of your classes, attendance is mandatory, and you can really immerse yourself in campus life. We also have an external study mode, where the majority of your study is online and you only come on campus for the necessary practical components of your degree. We try to make that as accessible as possible by condensing that practical learning into around a week, which we call a residential school. You come on campus for around a week, complete that practical study, and then return to your online study. And then finally we have fully online, which is a 100% online offering. You access all your course materials through our UConnect portal, and you also have access to student forums, online live classes, and consultation calls where you can ask questions in real time and chat with other students in your degree.

Guest: How does online study actually work? As an online student you cover exactly the same material as an on-campus student, and you graduate at the same time. There is no difference in the quality of teaching materials you have access to. There are also no requirements to physically visit campus, but as a student you will always have access to our facilities. So even if your classes aren't on campus, you can still come in and study in the library, go to the cafe, or meet up with other students who are on campus. The difference is that you have the option: you can choose to come on campus when it suits you. You access all your course materials and student support via UConnect, so you're not disadvantaged by missing out on student support. That is all available to you via online chat or over the phone as well.

Guest: In terms of course materials, we make it really easy with our library service. You can have study materials delivered to any campus and pick them up. I recently requested a book that was only available in Toowoomba and was able to request it be delivered to Springfield, which is closer to me, making it super easy to access that particular resource. That said, the majority of your learning materials, journal articles, and textbooks are found online anyway.

How to find fully online degrees on the UniSQ website

Guest: When you're doing your research, it's really helpful to know where to look to see if your chosen degree is actually offered online. On the website we have individual degree pages, and you'll see a location section. For example, the Bachelor of Accounting is offered at Springfield but also online. Because it has that online option, that means you would not have to come on to campus at all: it would be 100% remote learning.

Guest: You can also find this information at the back of our undergraduate guide. If you come and see us at Expo or pick up an undergraduate guide from school, you can turn to the back and see our different study modes listed there. Any degree that has an R listed next to it is 100% online and you won't need to come on campus to study. You can download that guide from the link in the description below.

Rob: Just while we're there, if you would like some personalised advice about all of this and you're thinking about studying online, in the description below you'll also find a link to book a consultation with someone from UniSQ. It's personalised, there's no cost involved, and it's a chance to talk about your specific options. You'll find that link down below.

Guest: Yes, we love to talk about that as much as possible, so feel free to bring that up whenever. It's always good to have a reminder. There's a temptation these days for people to feel like they have to do all their own research, and at some of the bigger universities it can be harder to talk to somebody. This is a really good opportunity to engage and get personalised advice one on one. Don't hesitate to let UniSQ do the heavy lifting and give you the information rather than you having to search everywhere for it.

Examples of degrees available fully online

Guest: A couple of examples of degrees offered online: we have the Bachelor of Business, the Bachelor of Psychology (Honours), the Bachelor of Laws, and the Bachelor of Information Technology. The Bachelor of Psychology is one we've been able to adapt to a fully online offering because we can deliver a lot of that practical, conversational learning online, which we're really pleased about. As I said earlier, there are over 130 degrees offered online at UniSQ, so there's a wide variety to choose from.

Guest: I'd like to take a moment to look at some student testimonials. Here we have Natalie, who studied the Bachelor of Psychology. She said: "I've studied in the car when waiting to pick up the kids from school, in the library where I can bring my kids, at home, at the girls' rehearsals, and even at their stead." I think that's a really great example of being able to jump online and do little bits and pieces of study wherever suits you, because when you have a family or you're working full time, it's hard to find those moments for dedicated desk time. Online study gives you that flexibility to fit in with your schedule.

Guest: This is Kylie, who graduated from her Juris Doctor. She chose to study at UniSQ because it was a university that offered distance education. She said: "I appreciate universities that strive to make learning accessible for everyone, not just students who live in major cities, have permanent residency, and can afford to study full time on campus." And I think that brings up a really fantastic point that you touched on at the start of this session, Rob, around accessibility: being able to make study as accessible as possible so people don't need to move away from home to study. One thing we're finding is that a lot of students are making great use of regional and suburban university study hubs close to where they live and then studying through us. So they might be living in regional New South Wales, but they can study through us and make use of those study hubs to support their learning. We're really proud to be able to offer that accessibility.

Guest: And then finally we have Noah, who is studying the Bachelor of Engineering (Honours). He said: "It was an adjustment studying some of my degree online. However, UniSQ is one of the best universities in this space since they were already online before COVID-19. The support was already there and in place. There was always someone contacting me to see how I was going." We're really happy to hear that feedback. That extra level of support, and making sure your experience is just as good as someone who is on campus with as many touch points with your teaching staff and support staff, is exactly what we want to provide.

Why UniSQ's long history in online learning matters when comparing providers

Rob: Can I speak to that for a moment? I think this is a really important point. If you are thinking about online study and you Google "online Bachelor of Business," you are going to get absolutely smashed by the number of results. Up the top you're going to see a number of institutions spending a lot of money to get your click-through. So how do you choose among all of this? That quote from Noah is so much more important than you might initially realise. Pre-COVID, online learning for many institutions wasn't a really big thing at all. It was more like an add-on extra. COVID made a lot of universities suddenly scramble to get things set up. On the other hand, you've got a small number of institutions, and UniSQ is one of them, who have literally been doing distance education as a major part of what they do for decades. Before the internet, they would record lectures onto cassette tape and post them to you in the mail. There are maybe half a dozen universities around Australia that are absolutely hardwired for online learning, and UniSQ is one of them.

Rob: So yes, when you Google online learning you're going to see a huge number of options. That doesn't mean there are a huge number of options you should necessarily consider. My personal opinion: if you want the best online learning experience, go with the university that has been doing this for a long time and for whom this is hardwired into the way they operate. That is a university like UniSQ, with 75% of students studying online, and those students are having a good experience because that shows up in student satisfaction results. I want to be clear: I'm not paid to say any of this. These are my independent thoughts, and that's what the Choosing Your Uni platform is built for. I've been doing the YouTube videos for almost ten years, and all of it is designed to provide an independent lens on what suits you. So when I say that, I say it with absolute conviction.

Guest: Absolutely. And it's been a really important part of who we are. We have a lot of online offerings, but we're also deeply connected to the communities we serve, particularly with our first campus in Toowoomba and the regional and remote areas that surround it. Making sure those communities have access to higher education has been a huge priority for us for many years. And as we talked about in our other session, there's the added importance of helping people from those communities gain the skills they need to go back and work in the communities they came from, serving regional areas that need more people to live and work there.

Common questions about online study: HECS, employer recognition, and choosing a degree

Guest: Let's go through some common questions we get about online study. The first is: can I receive government financial assistance if I study online? The answer is yes. Online university degrees are recognised by the government as tertiary study, much like on-campus study, so you would be eligible to apply for and potentially receive that assistance. That is a big yes, and not something you need to be concerned about when weighing up whether to study online or on campus.

Guest: Are online degrees recognised by employers in Australia? There are a lot of options that come up when you Google online study, so there are understandable questions around quality and whether an online degree will actually get you a job. The answer is absolutely yes. An online degree from a reputable tertiary education provider holds exactly the same status as a degree completed on campus. That is also the reason why not all of our degrees are offered online: some degrees, like nursing or paramedicine, require in-person assessments and practical classes in order to be accredited. So if a degree is offered online, it means we can provide the optimal level of teaching fully online. We wouldn't offer something online if it really required you to be on campus.

Guest: The last question I have here is: I'm not sure what to study. How do I choose an online degree? This is where we are here to help and to do some of that heavy lifting. We offer free appointments with our admissions team, where you can receive tailored support to help you choose your particular degree. One thing I didn't mention in our previous session is that we also offer free career consultations. Although our career educators are employed by UniSQ, they are focused on providing genuinely independent advice. They might actually tell you to go elsewhere. They're there to provide independent advice about your career path, help identify your skills and passions, and work out where you could apply those in a career, then provide support around where to study and work in order to achieve that goal. That's another really important resource you can access.

Rob: I want to add to that. If you were to go to a private careers coach or consultant, you'd be looking at around $150 an hour, and honestly they're probably going to tell you much the same thing as you'll hear from this free service. To me that is an absolute no-brainer. Career advising is an absolute professional occupation, and specialists can add a lot of value to your decision-making. This is a brilliant place to start.

Booking appointments, campus events, and open days

Guest: So let me show you our book-an-appointment page. You can get to it through our contact page, or the easiest way is just to Google "book an appointment UniSQ." This page has different bookable appointments for different enquiries: a degree advisor discussion, a high school student discussion, a pathways discussion. That's the first place to go for tailored advice. We also have our career advising practitioners there, so you can follow that link to book an appointment and get that more holistic career advice.

Guest: And if you're interested in still coming on campus, there are lots of opportunities for that, because just because you might be studying 100% online doesn't mean you won't want to utilise our facilities and catch up with your online study friends in person. We offer personalised campus tours on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays during term time. On those tours you get a one-on-one experience with a student ambassador, and wherever possible we'll match you with a student studying in the area you're interested in so you can get really in-depth insight into that degree.

Guest: We also have our Experience UniSQ sessions happening on the 17th and 18th of June. These are hands-on, in-depth sessions for Year 11 and 12 students. You'll get the opportunity to do an activity with the actual academics you would be learning from in future if you chose that study path. And finally, we have UniSQ Open Day coming up in August: Ipswich and Springfield on the 8th of August, and Toowoomba on the 15th of August. That's a fantastic opportunity to come on campus, get a feel for the spaces you'd be learning in, and chat with current staff and students about what it's really like studying with us. The insight you get from current students on those days is really valuable. I would highly recommend coming along.

Final questions: does online study cost more, and are fully online degrees really 100% online?

Rob: We're running close to time, but I have a quick question that came through the chat. Does online study cost more?

Guest: No, it doesn't. It costs exactly the same amount, because we're providing you with access to the same support and the same services as an on-campus student.

Rob: Good question actually. And just to confirm: all online degrees are 100% online, with no in-person component?

Guest: That's right. And that's why we've made the distinction between an external degree and an online degree. The external degree is mostly online but still has mandatory on-campus components. If you see a degree listed as online at UniSQ, that is 100% online. We won't require you to come on campus for that.

Rob: A question also came through Instagram earlier: someone wanted to hear more about your MBA online experience, but I think we're out of time unfortunately. Maybe we can get you into the Discord to share more. Actually, I should get you back on the UniSQ podcast at some point to talk about that experience. We are out of time, I'm afraid. It's been awesome having you at the National Virtual Expo. Thanks so much for joining me.

Guest: Thanks for having me. See you later.