Student Experience

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The College of Social Sciences is lucky to have one of the most extensive Student Experience teams at the University of Birmingham.

Our mission is to work in partnership with students to empower you to get involved, achieve your goals and grow at university.

These are our priorities:

  • Feedback - We believe that students should be partners in their learning and have a say in their experience at university.
  • Community - We believe that every student, no matter their background, should feel welcome and included at their university.
  • Development - We believe that university expands your horizons. We're here to give students the opportunity to build useful skills and develop themselves as people.
  • Communications - We believe in the importance of keeping students informed on the things that matter to them in ways that are useful and engaging

If you have any questions you can email our team inbox coss-studentexperience@contacts.bham.ac.uk or make a suggestion through our Suggestion Box.

Student Experience Officers

Student Experience Officers are permanent members of staff who work within each School and across the College for undergraduate and postgraduate students. We create and signpost extracurricular opportunities for students to make the most of university as well as empowering students to improve their academic experience.

You can expect Student Experience Officers to be friendly, helpful and approachable. They are often considered to be a bridge between students and the School.

Image of student experience officers

Staff Members: Please let your local Student Experience Officer know of any initiatives that relate to their remits, they can provide you with data on what works best for certain demographics of students, knowledge of what's happening across the University and even some funding. Please also let them know of any events/activities as they can include them in newsletters.

Students: We are here for you! If you have any ideas for how we can improve your university experience then please let us know, we are always happy to hear from you.

What we do 

Our team of Student Experience Officers work to ensure that our priorities are met by managing a number of initiatives.

We also manage projects to expand our knowledge and support for different groups of students, for example we have a new SEO who will be working specifically for non-standard programmes.

Here are just some of the examples of things we manage every day:

Feedback

  • Student Reps
  • Surveys such as NSS, PTES, UKES and SELT
  • Focus groups and consultations
  • Student involvement in committees and decision making
  • Managing the feedback loop

Community

  • Creating a community of staff and students
  • Welcome Week and Induction activities
  • Events and trips
  • Academic Societies
  • EDI and underrepresented groups

Development

  • Create and advertise opportunities
  • Collaborate with Careers, Alumni and departments on academic/industry related events
  • Work with Personal Tutors and Wellbeing Officers

Communications

  • Manage School communications
  • Newsletters, Social Media & Canvas presence
  • Strong demographic understanding
  • Keep students updated on things that matter to them

CoSS Student Experience Team

LydiaLydia Buffery (she/her)
Business School

bbs-studentexperience@contacts.bham.ac.uk

KerrieKerrie Myers
School of Government

gov-studentexperience@contacts.bham.ac.uk

GretaGreta Doig (she/her)
School of Social Policy

sp-studentexperience@contacts.bham.ac.uk

DeenaDeena Baskin-Atkinson (she/her)
School of Education and College Projects (EDI)

edu-studentexperience@contacts.bham.ac.uk

Rose Bennett

Rose Bennett (she/her)
College Student Experience and Wellbeing Manager

r.bennett.3@bham.ac.uk


 

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