SUSU.ORG - Refreshingly interactive :: Wessex Scene Online

SUSU.ORG - Refreshingly interactive

30th October 2002

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Gone are the days when all of the information needed to find your way to the next Freshers' social or club pub crawl are confined to noticeboards or hidden in a mountain of paper in the Freshers' pack. These days, all essential Freshers' information has a new value-added slogan: 'Go to our Web site for more information.'

A quick search on the University Web site for terms such as 'freshers', 'bunfight', and 'induction' brings back a wealth of competing information. It seems that it's not only the Clubs and Socs that will be decked out at the Bunfight who will be competing for Freshers' attention this year.

The major advantage that the Web brings to the new student is that it gives you a pretty good idea of what's likely to be happening in your first few heady days well before you even arrive at the University.

Browsing through the Students' Union Web site and Wessex Scene Online, you're soon made to feel welcome. Whether you're attending the 'Free Freshers Disco' on Wednesday, 'Party Night' on Friday, 'Dance Night' on Saturday, or the 'Free Freshers Disco' on Thursday (hang on, wasn't that on Wednesday as well?), there's no shortage of events being advertised online to initiate you into University life.

Yet, the real benefit of the Web to new students arriving at Southampton is its ability to allay some of the worries and concerns that all Freshers will have. For as well as promoting 'Free Karaoke', and doubtless excruciating renditions of You're the one that I want, considerable information from the likes of the Student Advice and Information Centre (SAIC) is available online. Whether you're feeling homesick, not sure you can make ends meet, worried about your choice of course, or concerned about making friends, online advice is readily at hand.

On the other hand, you might consider yourself to be a bit of a computer luddite and don't know one end of a mouse from another. How then are you going to research that essay online, scan those documents, and make sure you get your work printed out on time? ISS have the answer.

Thanks to a combination of Flash technology and video integration, a new service, the I-Zone (http://www.sucs.soton.ac.uk/i-zone), is now available for all new students to learn about those important computing tasks they need to know to survive at University. No longer will the secrets of 'filestores' and 'zip disks' remain a mystery!

These days the use of the Web to introduce a student to University life is as crucial as keeping your local pub guide to hand. And just to prove the point, I'll leave it to you to see how many pages are returned if you type 'pub' into the University search engine!

Jon Cole
Article orginally from Dolphin Magazine:

http://www.dolphin.soton.ac.uk/Oct2002/web.html