UniTasterDays sessions to recruit, reassure, and retain students

Cold feet. Stage fright. Imposter syndrome. Nerves are inevitable in the period before and after starting at university. Bustling campuses, dizzying deadlines, overwhelming opportunities… all while trying to find your place, your lane, your sense of belonging. Where should your students begin?

This session offers an introduction to university life to ensure your students arrive feeling calm and controlled. It acts as a tick-list to help them anchor themselves in a sea of possibilities. We’ll cover enrolment essentials, the value of inbox maintenance, and how to manage overwhelm with time-management tactics.

And we’ll offer reassurance (and remedies) to combat homesickness. Often, friendship and purpose are the cure, so we’ll assist your students in finding both with plenty of actionable advice.

It’s a hefty leap from the supportive school system to the expectations of degree-level study. The spoon is gone. Your students now need to feed themselves. They’ll need to grasp more complex topics and master independent learning. But your students can master their studies by taking control.

This session will give your students critical advice to keep them grounded during their transition to higher education. Firstly, we’ll explore vital organisational skills to stay abreast of deadlines, contact hours, and independent study. Secondly, we’ll highlight the study support available on campus: personal tutors, study groups, academic services, and (the palaces of paperbacks and PCs) university libraries.

Lastly, we’ll consider the superpower of motivation. We’ll help your students maintain their energy and enthusiasm, even when a particular module doesn’t pique their interest. We’ll discuss reframing, finding the joy, and the gamification of more mundane modules to transform them into something which lights a spark.

The cost-of-living crisis is unavoidable. It affects all aspects of university life: purchasing study materials, the weekly food shop, travelling home to visit family. Even with an empowering student loan system, the concept (and responsibility) of staying in the black can be enough to steer your students away from university altogether.

Never fear, this session will empower your students to manage their finances with surety. We’ll begin by covering budgeting basics, such as how to monitor their income and expenditure. Next, we’ll focus on the two-fold strategy to financial success: increasing income and decreasing expenditure.

We’ll help your students find opportunities for extra income: securing a part-time job, applying for scholarships, and accessing the hardship fund. We’ll also look at how not to increase income through misguided ventures. Your students will also gain advice on making their money go further, with student discount cards, buying second-hand items, and learning to balance FOMO with JOMO.

A good job. Your new students might have chosen the path to higher education solely for this reason. It might be the most compelling reason which is stopping them from dropping out during this difficult economic climate. If so, let’s help them move forward with this goal from their very first week on campus. This session is designed to help.

We’ll begin by enabling your students to reframe their thinking around employability: a good degree from a good university isn’t enough to guarantee a good graduate job. Instead, we’ll provide examples of the rich rainbow of opportunities found at your university that will add literal pages to their CV.

We’ll explore sports, societies, and volunteering. We’ll discuss securing a part-time job on campus and beyond. We’ll consider years abroad, years in industry, and years spent as an SU sabbatical officer. And we’ll advise on how to decide between these exciting prospects… or maybe pursue an entrepreneurial side-hustle in the time in between lectures and academic years.

To conclude, we’ll introduce your students to the support offered by your careers service – CV surgeries, careers fairs, mock interviews, alumni mentoring – so they can practice putting their expanding skillset into words.

Good health is paramount to succeeding at university. Your new students will need robust physical and mental wellbeing to stay positive in the face of a high academic workload, social pressures, and newfound independence.

This session will introduce your students to the four pillars of health: sleep, food, movement, and mind. If addressed together, they can form a nourishing blend of wellbeing to keep your students afloat during even the most tumultuous timetable. We’ll look at each corner of the health quartet, with specific examples of enabling tools available on campus.

Next, we’ll support your students with undertaking an informal health assessment, in which they score each pillar. In doing so, they’ll identify which pillar to prioritise for the most rewarding wellbeing intervention. Finally, we’ll show them how to set a realistic wellbeing goal, the importance of routine in achieving that goal, and how they can craft a routine that works for them.

Your students’ union is a multi-tool of support, opportunity, representation, connection, and fun. If your new students are feeling adrift, there is no better place to turn than their SU. It is a safe haven, brimming with a comforting community of likeminded peers. It is run by students for students, and they’ll always find an empathetic ear for their troubles.

But SUs are largely misunderstood by new students. They’re known for organising the Freshers’ Ball… but they do so much more. This session will introduce your new students to the treasure trove of exciting facilities and services found within their SU.

Firstly, we’ll define your students’ union: how it differs from the university, the perks of (automatic) membership, and its unique financing, structure, and governance. Secondly, we’ll cover the extensive wellbeing, representation, and employability services that exist to promote, extend, and defend your students’ rights.

Next, we’ll look at the opportunities on offer: the societies, the sports, the volunteering, the part-time jobs. And finally, we’ll end on the democratic rights that your students can exercise: submitting motions to council, voting in elections and referenda, and maybe even standing in elections themselves. Your future students might be future MPs. Their SU will foster that ambition.

Your new students haven’t just picked a university. They’ve picked a postcode, a location, a home. It might be a new city, a new type of city, or a different country to the place where they were born. Often, being a stranger in a strange land is enough to trigger homesickness, doubt, and the temptation to drop out. To combat this, we must help your students view their new surroundings as their home away from home. And they do this by exploring…

This session will advise your students on how to gain familiarity with their campus, their immediate town, and their wider city (or country). It will highlight the differing strengths of exploring independently and with friends, and where to find resources and recommendations to ease into the unknown.

We’ll also discuss regional stalwarts unique to your own university location and include these within our session. Additionally, your students will learn how to research must-see places themselves, such as restaurants, shops, cafes, attractions, and festivals. Finally, we’ll boldly suggest doing the friendship-forming opposite to all that research: taking a stroll without a goal.