The La Trobe Award Experience

My name is Sarah Newman and I am from the Education Faculty at the Bendigo campus.

I volunteered as part of the Connect Mentor Program, which is a program that is aimed at providing a smooth transition into university life for first year students. It begins with orientation week where you lead a group of first year students on a campus tour, and with this group it then continues for 6 weeks maintaining regular contact with each other either through weekly emails or catch ups over coffee. This program is important as it allows the students to have access to a large amount of information through someone who has experienced it first hand.

The hours spent can vary, but including the training days, orientation week and the time spent over the 6 weeks I would say roughly 25 hours. Its a small amount of time, that can provide a world of help to someone else.

I decided to volunteer in this program due to my first few weeks as a first year student, as I moved away to study I was new to the area and without any old school friends or family. I remember being incredibly nervous and overwhelmed by lectures, tutorials, assignments and everything else in between. This program helps to eliminate some of those nerves and allows you to have someone to email or chat to when you don't understand who to talk to about special considerations, or when you loose your student card, and even if your just not sure where to find the best coffee on campus! It was an excellent experience where you get the opportunity and I look forward to taking part next year!

My name is Marita Tillerås and I am in my first year of studying Media in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Melbourne campus. I am currently volunteering at the Sunday Lunch Club in Ivanhoe where a group of La Trobe students once a month help serving a hot lunch for elderly, isolated people.

We do everything from setting tables to eating lunch, it is absolutely very rewarding and my favourite part is sitting down talking to these interesting human beings. This first semester I have volunteered about 15 hours, but I am aiming for it to become something I do on a regular basis along with everything else on my schedule.

I really appreciate the initiative of the La Trobe Award as I started my volunteering when living in India about a year ago, where the appreciation of helping others grew so much I felt it was a necessary thing to implement in my life. Simply doing something on an initiative that does not revolve around money and materialistic things feels so fulfilling and I believe it is making me grow and cultivate sides of myself that would not have been promoted otherwise. Furthermore, volunteering in various settings definitely provides an opportunity for making connections and meeting people that may influence your future.