| Summary: | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Abstract</span></strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><em><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">First year students often feel ill-equipped academically and emotionally, hindering their integration and adjustment into university life. This paper describes a standardised orientation program for first year undergraduate students focusing on peer and academic support based on ‘just-in-time’ and ‘just-for-me’ principles, assisting commencing students to achieve a smooth transition into university. This initiative has been employed since 2009, in one of the three large colleges at the University of Western Sydney, to foster a sense of community and reduce stress among commencing students. Building on existing orientation activities, we introduced three new activities which focused on ‘just-in-time’ information for the first year, first semester experience, incorporation of student presentations and the inclusion of ice-breaker activities. Evaluative feedback revealed strong academic support for the initiatives, with College of Health & Science students reporting their orientation experience significantly more positively (P=0.003) than students from the other two colleges.</span></em><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"></span></p>
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