Written by Charlee Lean and Leo Berney
Day 1
We met a future student, by the name of Charlie, on our campus. He told us he wanted to study at Charles Sturt, and was overwhelmed by his options, what to study and where, so we took him on a trip to see them all.
We began our roadtrip in Port Macquarie, host of a wide variety of courses, from health to humanities and everything in between, even accounting.
Very good for the more science specific degrees, with lots of library resources, and a coastal vibe to match.
Our first stop on our roadtrip was Dubbo. Dubbo campus was surprising. We didn’t expect it to be so beautiful, despite its regional location. The library being a spiral building was particularly interesting.
The 90 Degrees Cafe was very nice, with good food and drink options. The campus itself was very navigable, with bikes provided for students to get around in a faster and more ecofriendly way!
This campus was mostly used by nursing and social work students and the resources available reflected this.
Day 2 – Orange, Bathurst, Wagga Wagga
We continued our roadtrip by heading off for Orange.
Orange is the campus to go to if you want to study medicine, they have extensive facilities for dentistry, rural health, and pharmacy. It’s also a really beautiful campus.
The Library has a wide range of resources, especially medical journals and anatomical models. Alice, the librarian, was amazing and showed us the dentistry rooms and the water tower.
After stopping in at Banjo’s Cafe for a pastry for lunch, it was delicious by the way, we pushed on to Bathurst.
Bathurst is one of Charles Sturt’s largest campuses with the most resources at your disposal, the library was incredibly large and well laid out, with separate book storage, desktop computers and independent and group study desks. They also have a Charlie Store and Pulse Cafe.
Wagga Wagga is just as big as Bathurst, with lots of diverse resources for many students. Their library is full of books and fun board and card games.
Wagga also had a beautiful campus, with many grass areas, lakes and social areas to explore. The whole campus was very fun to traverse and the cafe was very delicious to have breakfast at. It was very navigable, with good signage, so we never really got lost.
Day 3 – Albury
Albury is a very different campus. The entire design of the campus, architecture and landscaping is done with the environment in mind. The campus mascot, the Sloane’s Froglett, has special highways known as the “Froglett Highways” built around the area to allow the endangered froglett to live and navigate within the campus safely.
The Vinbar has a very diverse and affordable menu, with deals. There’s lots of nature and bushwalks around the area and dynamic and creative architecture. The library is open plan and full of fantastic resources including lots of computers and models to play with.
Conclusion
After 6 campuses, 3 days and over 1000kms, our takeaway was this.
It doesn’t matter where you study, its who you study alongside. If you can go to the other campuses and expand your horizons, absolutely do it. Because after all the hours in the car, hanging out with each other and making memories, we both agreed it was one of the best things we’ve ever done.
After all our roadtrip, Charlie decided to stay at home in Port Macquarie and study environmental science, we think he just wanted to go on holiday.
Charlie is a SSAF funded initiative.
