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Presidents Welcome

An inaugral welcome from the

President of MAKLSS

Best Waterholes

Where to drink, when to drink there and how much should you drink before class, the important

questions answered.

Best way to buy Textbooks

University textbooks are expen-sive, we have the tips and tricks to help navigate this expensive

undertacking.

O-Week is HereAnd we have the tips on navigating the social side of o-week.

TheVERDICT

Issue 1, O-Week Edition 2015

No 1A Mackillop Law Students Society Publication16th Of February 2015 An Affiliated society of ACUNSAMAKLSS

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Presidents Address’It is my pleasure to welcome you to the MacKillop Law Students’ Society. The Ver-dict is a student run pub-lication that provides our students and members with a forum to exercise their passion for journalism and writing. It is the students voice to the greater commu-nity. It is with great pleasure that we can deliver the first edi-tion of The Verdict to you. I would also like to use this space to congratulate and commend the founding committee of the MacKil-lop Law Students’ Society. Your work in your term has created a stable platform for our society to grow and flourish. I would also like to congratulate the team for the 2015 term. We have a year of exciting opportunities and a team that has the capabil-ity of exceeding all expecta-tions.

I would like to congratulate our team on being elected by their peers and thank the council members for their ongoing support. The MacKillop Law Stu-dents’ Society has taken off successfully in 2015 with our cabinet being elected who have already began to lay down the foundations of what we as a society want

to achieve. We have partic-ipated in the Walk4Justice, convened the ACU Inaugu-ral Contracts Moot Compe-tition, set up ties with our Melbourne counterparts at the St Patricks Law Students’ Society, set up a social justice sub-committee and affiliated ourselves with ALSA and NSWYL. University is only short jour-ney of our young lawyers lives and we have the op-portunity to not only engage with the students but to help them along the way. We aim to provide students of the Thomas More Academy of Law with the tools they need to actively participate in their professional careers. Law is an extremely taxing course to commit to, but may also lead to great opportunities in the not-so-distant future, hence why it is so important to encapsulate the essence of what we study, whilst main-taining a greater perspective of our roles as young adults in society. I would like to encourage ac-tive participation and mem-bership for all students in the law school. With the in-augural law ball coming up on the 22nd of April there is no better time to become involved. Lastly, I would like to thank those who helped the forma-

tion of the MacKillop Law Students’ Society. Without all of your help and support, what we are doing would not be pos-sible. Special thanks goes to the staff and particularly to Dr. Elizabeth Crawford-Spencer. Your guidance is always appre-ciated and the support that you have shown for the society will not be forgotten. Lachlan BurtPresident of the MacKillop Law Students’ Society

Vice-President John Ryan Thomas Treasurer Lee McDermott Secretary Jasmine Avetisian Competitions (Moot) Viktor Mrowka Competitions (Negotiation) William Agiropoulos Social Justice Director Heidi Pfeiffer Marketing Director Rebecca Crofts Publications Director Frances Coyne Sponsorship Director Jayden Namroud Education Director Foday Sessay Ball Convenor Brooke Kirk Events Director Peta Johnson IT Director Paige Coomber

- Leadership Team for 2015 -

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Editor of The Verdict and author of many of the articles you will see from us in the future.

Vice-President of the Law Society and regular contrib-utor of articles on all things controversial.

The President of MAKLSS and all round great guy, Burt brings a real energy to university life that is helping make law at ACU fun.

Frances John Lachlan

- 2nd Year Law Stu-dent -

- 2nd Year Law/Com-merce Student -

- MAKLSS President -

CONTRIBUTORS

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Tips on navigating the social side of

orientation“Hi I’m Frances… I like Malibu

Pineapples and Men with beards”By Frances Coyne

The first week of Uni is pretty much speed dat-ing for friends. But un-like speed dating, you tend to cling on to the first person you meet because you’re scared of being “Mike no mates”. As a result you won’t find your real friends till later in the semester and will spend your lunch breaks discussing Sarah’s pas-sion for anime (some-thing you have zero in-terest in).

While your trying to sort out the who’s who of your cohort, and work-ing up the guts to intro-duce yourself to the only babe you’ve seen since you started here, take into consideration the following tips:

-Be normal

While this may seem blaringly obvious, it’s not as easy as it seems. There’s nothing wrong with being a bit of a freak, but don’t let it all out in the first week. You

want to seem approach-able to as many people as possible, so maybe leave your “do me dr who” shirt at home. Defi-nitely bring it out later on when you’re trying to work out who your real mates are though. An-other “be normal” piece of advice is just to go up to people and say hi. Try not to stare at people and don’t start with any one liners (i.e. the title of this article.)

-Don’t ask any stupid questions

In your first lecture there is bound to be someone that asks a stupid ques-tion. You only have one first impression and you don’t want to come across as an absolute id-iot, when you might not even be one. The alter-nate also works – you don’t want everyone to think you’re a massive nerd/ snobby twat. My only piece of advice is to be careful of what you say in class, because I

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[a full tracksuit to class might mean you run the risk of being referred to as “Adidas guy” for the rest of the year.]

can guarantee that peo-ple will remember.

-Beware the nickname

Don’t wear anything out-landish or the same thing everyday. Wearing a full tracksuit to class might mean you run the risk of being referred to as “Adi-das guy” for the rest of the year. All I’m trying to say is that you don’t want to be given a nickname behind your back. Unless it’s an awesome one like “Hottie Mc Hottie”. Nick-names based on actions like stupid questions (as per previous piece of ad-vice) are particularly hei-nous and hard to shake.

Overall just have fun with the first week of class and embrace the diverse range of people you will get to meet. Don’t worry too much because you’ll eventually find the peo-ple you’re meant to be friends with, and you can all buy matching “do me Dr Who” t-shirts.

But if you’re still “mike no mates” after the first couple of weeks email t h e v e r d i c t . m a k l s s @gmail.com and we’ll go get some Malibu Pinea-ples together.

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The Best Pubs in North Sydney

The uni way of life

BY JOHN RYAN-Thomas

What to know where to drink? Where to take that cute girl you met in LAWS104? Well let me help you out with the best places to “Wet Your Whistle”.

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The Best Pubs in North Sydney

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You’re starting a new chapter in your young life by going to uni and you will learn many im-portant life lessons while here, but most impor-tantly you will learn that where ever the drinks are is where you should be.So here are the three nearest and preferred watering holes to ex-plore.

The TerraceQuite and normally pret-ty empty before we get there. Terrace is a great place for a quiet bever-

age with a couple friends but once we all arrive can become a loud squashed place to be.

With tables and chairs inconveniently allowing for only a few people to a table or lounge chairs that make you feel asleep it’s not the best place to end a day but a great place to duck to between class.

GreenwoodIf any of you don’t know what the Greenwood is you either had sheltered teen years or know it by

its other name… Teen-wood. A great place to go for a cheap pub lunch, not badly priced drinks and enough room to fit as many people as you can convince to go get a drink.

TreehouseWhile the other options for getting your drink on offer cheap options Tree-house throws that out the window. With prices that make most uni stu-dents cringe but with a hipster vibe thats sure to make many happy its not a bad place to take that

girl/guy your trying to impress.

Many of the different groups on campus will visit Greenwood at one point or another, in-cluding staff so try not to be to far gone when you lecturers walk past. It right near the sta-tion and buses making it a great place to grab a quick drink on your way home after a hard day of learning.

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Talk to a MAKLSS member in the coming weeks to find out when everyone will be go-ing down to drink, chances are it will be between classes.

.Wet Your Whistle.

- Greenwood Hotel -

- Treehouse -

- Terrace -

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Shop around The oldest rule of bar-gain hunting has got to be shopping around. Why pay more for an item when the bloke down the road’s selling it for less? When it comes to textbooks, “booko” is a great site for text-book price comparisons. Booko compares prices from all Australian and overseas online vendors. It may be more conven-ient to buy from the lot from the on-campus co-op bookshop, but shop-ping around is one of the best ways to save. The only thing that you’ll have to keep in mind when buying online is the time it takes for ship-ping (and obviously the cost).

Rent The next $$ saving option for purchasing textbooks is to rent them. There are many online retail-ers that allow you to rent books. The website “Jek-kle” offers rental books that you use for a semes-ter and simply post back free of charge. “Zookal” and “the Campus Book-store” are other online shops that operate the same way. The only thing you have to be aware of when renting textbooks is that you cannot mark or damage them. So if you’re a bit of a slob then maybe refrain from rent-ing.

Buy second handAs well as renting, Zookal has the option of pur-chasing second hand textbooks. There are a number of ways you can purchase second hand textbooks, includ-ing gumtree, eBay, Face-book and student notice-boards. When looking to buy sec-ond hand textbooks pop-ular online marketplaces like gumtree and ebay are a good place to start. While it is not guaran-teed that your textbooks will be there it’s always worth a shot. You nev-er know, you may be in luck!

Some Facebook groups exist for students to pro-mote textbooks thay are selling to other students. It’s definitely worth ask-ing about the books that you are after on these fo-rums. You can also post and sell your own books.

*no matter what you do, textbooks are still f***ing expensive

Text written by John Doe

Stingy Sally’s guide to Cheaper* Textbook

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[always keep a look out for bargains. Students are an optimistic bunch so they’ll usually set a higher price than theyr’re expecting to be offered]

1. Shop Arround

2. Rent

3. Buy Second Hand

4. Share.

5. Use the library

6. Buy Digital Copies

7. Apply for a scholarship

Many students try to of-fload their textbooks at the end of semester to make back part of their purchase price. Usually these books wil be ad-vertised on student no-ticeboards around cam-pus at the start of each semester. When using this method always keep a look out for bargains. Students are an optimis-tic bunch so they’ll usu-ally set a higher price than theyr’re expecting to be offered. So it’s ok to haggle it down to a reasonable price. Aiming to pay around 65% of the original purchase price should be decent.

The most important thing to take into con-sideration when pur-chasing second hand books is their edition. New editions of text-books are often released every few years with up-dated information. It is important that you get the edition you are pre-scribed so that you have the same pages, ques-

tions and information as your classmates.

ShareIf you’re not an only child, and therefore don’t mind sharing (yeah I went there), then you could consider this op-tion for textbooks. As long as your group are in different tutes then sharing could be a fea-sible option. Of course this revolves around you making friends. So get cracking.

Use the library Most of ACU’s prescribed texts are available in the library. Some may be high demand items so you may only be able to keep them for a short amount of time. Regard-less, you should check the library before buy-ing your text, just in case you can save yourself the money.

Buy digital copies Digital copies are great because it means you don’t have to carry

heavy textbooks around! They are also marginal-ly cheaper as the cost of printing is eliminated. A great idea is using ibooks for ipad. These textbooks are usually interactive so they heighten the learn-ing experience. When us-ing digital textbooks just be sure that if you have an open book exam you can get your hands on a hard copy as you are not allowed to take a digital copy into the exam.

Apply for a scholarshipIf you find that textbooks are just too expensive for you, even after read-ing this article, then you might want to look at the scholarships that are on offer. “The campus book-store” has a scholarship available to ACU stu-dents, which covers the

cost of textbooks. Other big businesses and insti-tutions offer schlarships and it is worth looking around if you think you might be eligible.

Final tip: Make sure that you need the textbook before purchasing it! Sometimes you will not need certain texts so al-ways ask your lecturer first. You will most likely only need the core text and in some cases not even that.

Got any other el cheapo hints? Email us at thever-dict.maklss@gmail.com. - Stay stingy xoxo

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