Hiya! I hope you guys are okay! Personally, I am fine and really looking forward to Easter holidays next week as there are many assignments and mid-terms going on nowadays. Even though. I am not going home until May it is a good opportunity to rest and do a primary revision for my upcoming exams in the end of May-beginning of June.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have been a course representative of 1st year International Hospitality Management students since the beginning of the year in September. Today, I will spend some time explaining what that is, how it can help students and what we have achieved so far! First, being a course rep is a position that is currently coordinated by the students’ union VP Voice. It is all about listening to your course mates’ feedback regarding the academic modules and transferring it to the appropriate academic staff either in person, email or in the organised Board of Studies which is happening once every semester. After that, the school makes the appropriate adjustments if possible, in order to satisfy the needs of the students and let each course rep know about the outcome and whether it is going to be applied from this or next year. In that way, students help the course to develop and become more approachable and interesting to current or new students. For example, last semester there was one module that wasn’t that appealing to students and they expressed their disappointment. Thus, we talked to the board of studies and we offered some suggestions for improvement and it decided that the module would be re-evaluated next year in order to become more interesting to future students.
In case someone wants to become a course rep they must nominate themselves and get elected by their course mates. Nominations for new students take place in the start of each academic year in September while continuing students elect their course reps for the following year each April. Every course can have a maximum number of 2 reps. As soon as they get elected, they have to undertake some training provided by the Students’ Union in order to familiarize themselves with the university and students’ union functions and what the role requires. I really enjoyed being a course rep this year as I am always willing to improve my course and contribute to its development as well as helping my course mates by transferring their feedback to the university. If I would need to mention a drawback for this position is that sometimes it is very difficult to gather a good amount of feedback to present on the board of studies, however everytime me and my co-rep for the course, Natalie manage to come up with some good feedback!