Hi, I’m Sophie and during my 3 years in Mechanical Engineering at UWS I have often felt that I wasn’t as capable as some of the other students on the course, but as I went further into my course I realised that not everyone excels at all topics and that communication and support between students is paramount in a student’s experience at University. In order for students to support each other more I would like to encourage a system where new students are able to talk to senior students for not only mentor academically, but also emotionally, something that has being even more important while students have had to take their studies online.
I understand that the Student Union works towards getting students involved and to interact with one another and they are doing an amazing job, even in current circumstances, however, I propose that this network would function within the students’ courses and would benefit both levels of students.
Furthermore, when I first applied to the University of West of Scotland, I was able to have a tour of the university grounds, which was definitely beneficial to me and helped me when deciding which university to attend. However, the guide for my tour was of a different course to the one I was applying for and therefore some of the questions I had specific to my chosen course were left unanswered.
In addition, I have been able to sign up for a STEM program with Dell during my course, however, this course was only available to females. Having spoken to males on engineering courses, they made it clear that they were disappointed that they hadn’t had the opportunity to be involved in the program. While I am grateful for the opportunity and understand that there is a push to get females into engineering, which I support, I would like to make similar programmes more available to all students so that they are given equal opportunities.