Advising

Winning poster Competition announcement

FLY@UP ‘My Pledge’ posters

A FLY@UP corona support webpage was created9. This page was linked to the UP corona support page for students and the Learning THE UP WAY Online campaign, in collaboration with the Department for Institutional Advancement (DIA).

A virtual competition was held to create a sense of community while students were studying remotely.

Students entered original poems, songs, dances, photography, paintings and digital artworks. All the art elements were then combined into the FLY@UP virtual student event, which will be made available to all UP students in 2021. Enabling students to provide content to the campaign has been an ongoing strategy.

Another virtual activity asked students to make a pledge regarding their own success. The FLY@UP campaign has always emphasised the student’s agency in his or her own success. Included in the pledge was the provision for students to share one thing they had learnt during lockdown and a message of support to their fellow students, all of which were uploaded to the website. Some of the messages were chosen for the motivational campaign in the second semester, once again bringing in student voices.

An online game with links to UP support resources was developed and uploaded to the UP web and clickUP. Named Ups and Downs, it follows the ‘Snakes and Ladders’ game rules with fun messages popping up to encourage students to make use of UP’s resources and support.

FLY@UP, in collaboration with the EI video production team, developed a video for the virtual #chooseUP day: Technologies and Terminologies at the University of Pretoria.

The main function of faculty student advisors is to provide co-curricular support and development: advice on module choice, dropping modules, study skills, time management, stress management and so on, offered through workshops and individual appointments. They also refer students with psychological problems to counselling, students with content problems to tutorials and students with financial difficulties to Finance.

In addition to these services, analytics data show that students regard them as a one-stop support service for everything, so knowing the University and being able to refer students