ATAR Notes: Forum
Uni Stuff => General University Discussion and Queries => Topic started by: tea.squaredd on November 27, 2010, 12:59:46 am
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Hey, Im still at High School but i've been wondering lately, "what leadership positions are there in uni?"
Im assuming theres nothing like 'class captain' etc.
Is there still SRC?
I guess theres sport captains? Is sport still offered to uni students? LOL sorry for being so uh, ignorant, but noone tells me this stuff !
Cheers!
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There are sport captains I'm sure.
SRC is I guess something similar to the Student Unions. But I think as opposed to a certain person being one of the most popular in the school (for school SRC), there aren't really "popular" people across the campus in Uni.
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Also, positions within the uni newspaper(s)
There are sport captains I'm sure.
SRC is I guess something similar to the Student Unions. But I think as opposed to a certain person being one of the most popular in the school (for school SRC), there aren't really "popular" people across the campus in Uni.
Union ppl are voted for by students, just like SRC. Popular? Well, they commonly polarise opinion; a Socialist Alternative union president would have his/her acolytes and detractors, as you can imagine.
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I was going to say it was more political (I had a look at something to do with student unions at monash and saw that they were under "parties"), but I wouldn't know having not been to uni, so didn't include it.
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It's all political. Every year there's an election and that determines who holds every office. Union president/indigenous officer/sport office/magazine editor etc.
There are sport teams but they're not really under the influence of the Union that much.
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So...
Student union? What? Is it similar to SRC where they try make the whole schooling experience better for present and future students?
How many people get these positions? :S
By the way, I dont do this sport, but do they offer lacrosse at monash/melb?
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There's also the societies representing each faculty (as well as societies for other clubs; sporting, special interests etc.) that each have their own leadership positions; usually a hell of a lot of them as well. Like for Med, every year level will have an academic and social rep, other roles such as secretary, treasurer etc. on top of reps for many sub-committees such as surgery, community wellbeing etc. I don't know if all other faculty societies are like this, but overall there are A LOT of positions available depending on which clubs you join.
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Student union? What? Is it similar to SRC where they try make the whole schooling experience better for present and future students?
They try to make it better in the way that the federal government tries to make things better for Australians.
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There's programs like SALP and DoE you can join if that's what you are after. Or you can apply for positions in clubs/societies and fundraising campaigns on campus which I think are good experiences...
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Student Unions are known as breeding grounds for future politicians. Does say something about the way it's structured eh?
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Thanks for the clear ups guys.
However, what groups are there for med students (or any student) at monash? S:
Something like SALP that was mentioned above?
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Thanks for the clear ups guys.
However, what groups are there for med students (or any student) at monash? S:
Something like SALP that was mentioned above?
Do you mean for their specific faculties? Well for Med there's the Med society which all Medicine students automatically join since there's free membership. The amount of positions is shown on their website here, so like I said in my previous post, there's no shortage of positions up for grabs. For other faculties, they'll have their own socities such as Law society, SICC (commerce and IT IIRC) and others. Then once again, there's all the special interest groups.
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LOLwtf?! 51 positions for med? thats heaps..
are they hard to get? isnt there only like 250 students or something for that a year level
Is it by vote or teacher decision?
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LOLwtf?! 51 positions for med? thats heaps..
are they hard to get? isnt there only like 250 students or something for that a year level
Is it by vote or teacher decision?
lol there's no 'teachers' in University. I mean you've got your lecturers and such, but ultimately all the societies are run by students. So in this case, it's a student vote, typically done online for us. I know that the student union ones are done in person though, with a ballot system similar to how state and national elections are done, even with them marking your name off to prevent double voting. And obviously some are difficult to get; namely the year level reps. Some are a give away though, with no one having applied for them, or those who did ending up receiving other positions. We've had cases where this has happened and they basically gave a note out saying that whoever applies for it now will immediately get the position, but this is usually for the less wanted positions such as those on subcommittees. But still, the competition isn't ever really that big. You'll only ever see at most 5 people running for a position from a cohort of 300.
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Unions are very political and are a lot of the politics is often about much more than student issues. A lot of the positions within the union are either full time or at least paid, too. The closest thing to an SRC rep would be the the student liaison reps for each subject, who just attend one meeting and distribute a survey to a bunch of students who really couldn't care less. The executive committees of clubs are much more serious, since they're responsible for organising events, funding, etc on their own.
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The best part is when the student rep takes it super seriously and send you 1000 word emails every week on what's going on :(
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So, there's a lot of 'politics' ?
What would you guys mean by that?
Example :D?
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It's pretty much like the state election or the federal election that just occurred. They have policies and criticise the actions of the other parties and form alliances and voting blocs etc.
And half the uni students don't care and just turn up for free beer/sausages on south lawn
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It's really annoying when people running for an election come up to you and talk about their policies and such, as though they actually affect change on things like 'campaign so that the age of independence for youth allowance is 18.'
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I recall how in 2005 the head of UMSU publicly condemned Israel -on behalf of the student union. Cue a piece in Farrago (umelb newspaper) arguing that "I'm quite attuned to the idea of buying something which gives me perks and discounts on services etc, but I won't join a student union which assumes I pay it to think for me."
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Example? I'm talking real politics, not the negotiating with teachers kind you see in year 12, haha. The student unions can be worth over a hundred thousand dollars, so there are always various factions that want to strip it. Melbourne's More Beer club was once a skimming fund for the Liberals, for example (we kicked them out a few years later). If you want an example of just how dangerous the politics can be, just look at Swinny. Their entire $100k+ union has been stripped out by socialist alternative.
It's really important for people to at least vote, though, because groups like Socialist Alternative are the kind where every single member will vote and campaign heavily, so a small minority can easily become a majority at the polls come election week. I'm not particularly worried about which group gets in, so long as they don't have a skimming agenda. So yeah, as long as somebody like Unite or Fresh + iUnion get in, everything's relatively safe.
If you're like me and don't really bother with the students' rights side of it, the only party worth caring about is More Activities. More Activities only runs for the activities officer positions and literally have no agenda other than getting more funding. The more votes More Activities gets, the more funding the clubs and societies get. It's really that simple.
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Example? I'm talking real politics, not the negotiating with teachers kind you see in year 12, haha. The student unions can be worth over a hundred thousand dollars, so there are always various factions that want to strip it. Melbourne's More Beer club was once a skimming fund for the Liberals, for example (we kicked them out a few years later). If you want an example of just how dangerous the politics can be, just look at Swinny. Their entire $100k+ union has been stripped out by socialist alternative.
It's really important for people to at least vote, though, because groups like Socialist Alternative are the kind where every single member will vote and campaign heavily, so a small minority can easily become a majority at the polls come election week. I'm not particularly worried about which group gets in, so long as they don't have a skimming agenda. So yeah, as long as somebody like Unite or Fresh + iUnion get in, everything's relatively safe.
If you're like me and don't really bother with the students' rights side of it, the only party worth caring about is More Activities. More Activities only runs for the activities officer positions and literally have no agenda other than getting more funding. The more votes More Activities gets, the more funding the clubs and societies get. It's really that simple.
+1 Definitely well summarised. There was an article about this in Farrago encouraging students to at least vote for exactly the reasons you mentioned.