A Good Start.... at Cork Institute of Technology..... A student induction programme, by students for students

The proposed paper/presentation is on the design and development of a new student induction programme in CIT by a project team (4) of current students and recent graduates in collaboration with CIT management and staff under the new CIT Strategic Student Engagement and Retention Initiative. The project called ‘A Good Start..’ is a strong example of a student to student initiative and will be piloted in September/October this year. It is intended that this project will give us templates for future development in CIT but also templates for action that other HE providers might find useful should they be disseminated. The paper will outline how the project was initiated, designed and developed; the engagement of internal stakeholders in its development, the challenges faced and overcome, and immediate feedback on the first pilot rollout. Conference paper will draw on very recent research on student engagement and retention and will also present themes emerging from CIT´s ongoing primary research with student and staff focus groups. Included in presentation will be feedback from very recent student and staff focus groups on the expectations and challenges faced when starting in Higher Education. At time of conference the first pilot will be in final weeks enabling some discussion on a live project its issues, its successes and lessons for next year. The presentation will be made by the student development team so they benefit from the experience and feedback (this is an important element of their personal and professional development and is both an incentive and a reward) but also because they will make quite an impression!