2nd Year SLCs 16/17

Many students may find they have comments and opinions on how they are taught or assessed but do not know how to have these issues raised. The Undergraduate Student and Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC) is a formal channel where students can express their views and opinions on these academic matters. The discussions are focused solely on teaching, learning, and student support issues. The committee is made up of elected student representatives from each degree stream, as well as staff, and usually meet twice a term. You can contact your student representative to have your comments and suggestions discussed in these regular meetings, but there are also other routes. These can include using the suggestion box or Mid-Module Feedback on Moodle (for anonymous suggestions, sent straight to the module leader), emailing chem-ugsslc@warwick.ac.uk, speaking with Dr Lynne Bayley, the convenor of SSLC, or potentially a direct discussion with a lecturer when a certain lecturer is concerned. The student representatives you can contact are: First Year – Caroline Akamune, Thomas Bolton, Jonas Bouhlal, Sacha Charlton Second Year – Georgina Bryson, Gabby Han, Shaumica Saravanabavan Third Year – Zena Choi, Mathew Clayton, David Seow Fourth Year – Amy Sansom, Alice Partridge It can also be really useful to contact certain staff with any issues you are struggling with. The first person to contact should be your personal tutor, but you can also talk to Dr David Fox (Senior Tutor), or Lucy Johnson for degree stream help.

University is such an exciting chapter of your life, but it is understandable that we as students often fear what comes next. You may potentially be thinking about further study, with a Masters or a PhD, or possibly already looking at a graduate job. Whatever your plans, whether you know what you want to do or not, you can get so much support from the University. Warwick ranks first in the High Fliers 'The Graduate Market in 2017' report, ahead of Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, Cambridge, Birmingham, Leeds, Oxford and more, and were third place for the previous two years. There are two weekly careers services in the Oculus:- Job Search Advice outside Oculus 1.09 Drop in Monday - Thursday, 8.30-10am, 10am-12pm and 12-2pm This service offers application support, CV and cover letter reviews, interview support and job search support. Friday Focus inside Oculus 1.09 Bookable via myAdvantage , Fridays at 12-1pm and 1-2pm A short overview of the basics of effective applications and CV’s and individual support. There are many programs at Warwick to provide experience to students preparing for work. The Chemistry department offers the Undergraduate Research Support Scheme (URSS) to provide a bursary and skills development training to support undergraduate students who wish to carry out a summer research project as an addition to a degree course. It is open to students from first year, up until their final year, and is important to find an academic with similar interests who can support your project before the deadline in January. The best time to find them is ASAP, best before Christmas so that you can work on your application together. If you’d like to try your hand in another area, there is the Warwick Undergraduate Internship Programme (WUIP), which offers learning and development support from Student Careers and Skills for final year students across the span of 6 weeks. It gives you a chance to see how the University works from behind the scenes and you can register your interest online. Further opportunities can be found via the Vacancies and Events tabs on the MyAdvantage website linked below! https://myadvantage.warwick.ac.uk/ Written by Lisa Kitsz and Zena Choi

Congratulations on getting into Warwick! As exciting as this new chapter of your life is, university life can bring about all kinds of stresses. This can range from trying to manage your course load, to housing worries, mental health struggles or possibly financial difficulties. For most of these concerns, you can visit the SU website’s advice page, or visit nightline, which is open from 9pm to 9am during term time (these websites are mentioned at the end). This article however, has a few useful tips on how to manage your course load. First of all, try to treat University like a job. Divide your 24 hours every day into three eight hour blocks. 8 hours for working on your course, 8 hours for sleeping and 8 hours for leisure, which includes playing in sports clubs, society events, cooking, going out, etc. Obviously, this is a rough guide and in first year you might not strike the work/ fun balance straight away, but that's okay! Not every day is the same and first year is about enjoying yourself, meeting new people and exploring a new place away from home! At the beginning of the term, make sure you note down when any deadlines are! For example, most tutorial work is due the week before the tutorial itself. Meaning, if you check your tabula to find you have a tutorial this week, and you haven't yet done the work, it's already too late. This can easily be sorted by marking all the days you have tutorial or workshops on a calendar as well as marking the deadline the week before. It may seem rather tedious to do all this at the beginning of term, but it is definitely worth it to have these reminders for when you have other things on your mind during the term. The same could be done for laboratory work. Mark the days on a calendar when you have practical labs so you know well in advance when to have the prelab complete as well as the deadline for any post lab work. Your first term will fly by and at the end of it, you will deserve a well needed break. However, during the Christmas holidays, it may help to read over the modules from the previous term, and possibly do some practise questions to solidify the content in your mind. In the new term, you will have other modules, and it is easy to forget most of what you learnt before. Try to refresh that knowledge because you will have to pick it back up again come the Easter holidays. You have chosen a challenging degree, which can have very tough periods, but that doesn’t mean you can’t also have a good time. Don’t forget to look after yourself - you can take breaks sometimes, but also make sure you join sports clubs and societies. Get involved with campus life. As much as coming to university is about studying for your degree, it is also about meeting new people, being in a new place away from home and having fun! Warwick SU Advice Page https://www.warwicksu.com/advice/ Nightline https://warwick.nightline.ac.uk