The evolution of student onboarding

From the moment a school-leaver becomes a prospective university student, they are bombarded with higher education information. The outreach accelerates once they apply. Then, when they accept their offer, the flow of e-communication can be relentless. Many students grow numb to university notifications before they even set foot on campus.

Adding to these efforts – with intentions to provide useful onboarding information – universities hold orientation events and invest in student hubs with the hope of reinforcing need-to-know information that may have slipped through the cracks. 

Adrift in a sea of instructions, policies, directions, course outlines and activities, it’s no wonder many new students report feeling lost, overwhelmed and unsure of where to go and what to do.

• A tailored onboarding programme can help set neurodivergent students up for success
• Use welcome workshops to build student belonging
• How can universities ensure all new students feel welcome?

We tackled this challenge with a scalable, online, student-informed onboarding course, Takatū: Preparing for UC. Along the way, we discovered five key lessons from our experience at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC) that any institution can apply to improve how they welcome new students.

Lesson 1: Start with student feedback 

If you’re not asking students what they struggled with during their transition into university life, you’re designing in the dark. A student survey sent out in May asked two open-ended questions to current undergraduates:

• What was one of the most challenging aspects about your transition into university?
• What is one thing UC could have done to help prepare you better?

More than 4,500 students responded. Their candid feedback revealed pain points we hadn’t fully grasped: unclear expectations, inconsistent advice, confusing systems and a paradox of too much information creating confusion rather than clarity. 

Student feedback became the foundation for Takatū. We didn’t assume what students needed; we asked them. And we listened. We crafted every module, video and resource in response to what students told us they wish they’d known before they arrived.

Lesson 2: Create equitable, on-demand access

Traditional orientation models often rely on being in the right place at the right time and students giving focused attention once they are there. If a student can’t attend welcome events, misses an email or struggles to navigate the website, they’re at risk of starting on the back foot.

An online, on-demand pre-arrival course designed for incoming undergraduates, as we have introduced in Takatū, eliminates this friction. It is accessible to all students – whether they’re a domestic school-leaver, an international student, an adult student, a scholarship recipient or the first in their whānau (family) to attend university.

Students can engage when and where it suits them, revisiting information as needed. This ensures no one misses out simply because they cannot make it to campus, they don’t check their emails or because they are not in a specific cohort.

Lesson 3: Embed onboarding in the learning environment

Onboarding can help demystify the digital environment on which students will soon depend. We hosted Takatū within the learning management system (LMS) students will be using for their academic studies. 

The course featured five modules:

• Preparing for UC: The module covers terminology, degrees, enrolment, accommodation and financial aid
• Academic foundations: Class types, academic skills and expectations
• Student support: This details all our support services, from advising to security
• Thriving: Current students deliver tips for life skills, time management and well-being
• UC community: Campus culture, history and introduction to our city, Christchurch.

We kept navigation intuitive, added photos and videos featuring a diverse mix of our students and staff, and designed simple quizzes that mirrored the formats they might later encounter. The experience should inspire confidence, not confusion.

Lesson 4: Make onboarding comprehensive, not complicated

The design principle was clear: comprehensive, but not complicated. Takatū includes a welcome page, a pre- and post-survey, five modules and quick assessments that reinforce key points.

Students can skip around and explore what is most relevant to them. The emphasis is on empowering new students with a simple just-in-time resource saturated with relevant information, but devoid of unnecessary distraction.  

Lesson 5: Evaluate and iterate

Just over 800 students completed at least one module of Takatū, with 300 completing the entire programme. Still, for a first iteration, with limited promotion, this was a fine outcome – and provides insight for future improvements.

End-of-semester data analysis is promising. Students who completed Takatū had a collective 22 per cent higher GPA than matched peers who didn’t engage with the course. Their pass rate was 7.3 per cent higher.

Of course, attribution is always complex. But the positive trends didn’t end there. Pre-semester engagement with student support services increased. Student-advising demands during the first two weeks decreased. And our pre- and post-surveys showed statistically significant increases in students’ confidence and decreases in their anxiety levels.

Giving students what they need to know, when they need it

Takatū hasn’t replaced our orientation events or e-communication campaigns, but it does enhance their reach. It ensures that every new student, regardless of background or circumstance, has access to a coherent and consistent foundation from which to begin.

How students begin university is arguably the most critical part of the entire journey. An uninformed start often brings avoidable mistakes that can lead to a disastrous first semester. We know many such students never recover, and their trajectories are forever altered. 

An on-demand, digital onboarding course that aims to be both comprehensive and student-informed can ensure our students have access to what they need to know when they need to know it.

Cory Elfrink is assistant director of Kia Angitu, student success at the University of Canterbury.

The University of Canterbury is the host of THE Campus Live ANZ “Local roots to global reach: Shaping ANZ universities’ future” on 2-3 September 2025.