It’s Rose, I’m the Postgraduate Education Officer in the Students Unions, so I’m one of the 6 full time, elected officers and it’s my job to represent masters and PhD students on any academic issues that they have, so whether that’s around timetabling or marks or anything else as sort of an independent person from the University, that students can come to and ask advice and I’m an elected student so I’ve had the experience of being a postgraduate student.

I think there’s a general view that the Students Union is just for undergraduate students and they put on parties and it’s for sports teams and societies but something that I’m really keen to encourage post graduate students to do is get involved in the Students Union as well because I don’t think that University life should just be about the studying, there’s so much more to it and it’s a really enriching experience.

There’s a few particular things that I think would appeal to doctoral researchers in the Students Union, so we’ve got our student reps team which is run by me and Savannah who’s the Undergraduate Education Officer and it’s the scheme between the  University and the Students Union where students are elected to represent their cohort on academic issues and they work quite closely with me, so that’s a really good opportunity to  get involved in shaping your education and having a say in what you learn or the way things are taught and more generally in the way that the University is run.

We also offer, like I said before, independent advice from the University, so the Students Union is independent and so we have our support and advocacy team who I work very closely with so if students are having an issue, hopefully not many students are, an issue that do need to raise and they feel that it would beneficial to talk to someone that doesn’t work within the University, we’re there to offer advice.  That is particularly around complaints and appeals and marks and things like that. We also have the buddy scheme as well, which is a really good way for new doctoral researchers to meet current doctoral researchers, so if you are a new student, you are buddied up with a current student and they can kind of show you around, show around Brighton and the University.  You can be as committed as you want, you don’t even have to meet in person, you can just talk via email or Facebook or whatever you find most  comfortable, but tis a good way to have someone to ask questions to  if you’re not sure about things and to figure out your way around here.

And obviously I would always encourage doctoral researchers to join clubs and societies and sports team as well. So we have the Postgraduate Association as well, which is  a society for postgraduate students but there’s obviously so much more as well that you can get involved in.