‘BE2021’ (Reynolds, 2008).

Back on campus this semester, we are pleased to introduce some of our Student Ambassadors for this year, and asked them to tell us a bit more about themselves and what they have been working on…

Aisling

My name is Aisling, I am a fourth year French and International Relations Student here at the University of Leeds and come from a small town near Preston in the North West. I would say that I’m a bit of a politics geek and spend quite a lot of my free time doing my best to keep up with the news or reading books about politics…as if doing a degree in it wasn’t enough! When I’ve not got my head buried in books, I enjoy cooking, running and I recently started going climbing. I also have a love for cats and, although I don’t have my own, I take every opportunity to go and visit the cat café in Leeds. During my time here at Leeds, I’ve loved going on nights out (especially to Fruity) and getting involved in societies such as FrenchSoc and Yoga.

As a Library Ambassador, my role has involved surveying the one-to-one service offered by the Skills@Library Learning Development Team. I began my project by having a look at how other university libraries run their one-to-one support sessions for academic skills, before feeding back to the team. It was interesting doing research on how other libraries support their students with academic skills and being able to compare and contrast these with the Leeds Library. Recently, I started sitting in on the one-to-one sessions as an observer which has been really interesting. Even as a final year, I have found this useful for picking up new academic skills, which is always a bonus! At the end of each session, I conduct a short interview with the student to ask them for their thoughts and feedback. Eventually, I hope to gather around 15 of these questionnaires to gain clear insights into what students think of the one-to-one service. Given the changing nature of teaching and learning to go online during the pandemic, I feel that this is important in order to understand how students feel about one-to-ones being conducted online.

Astred

Hi! My name is Astred, I am currently in my fourth year at the University of Leeds. I completed my undergraduate degree in BA Politics here and loved it so much, I decided to return for a postgraduate degree in MA Political Communication. I love Leeds as a city as there’s so much to do and explore, whether it’s going for a scenic walk around Roundhay Park or going out for cocktails down Call Lane. I’m excited about my role as a student ambassador for Skills@Library because I want to share my positive experience of the University and its academic resources with new students. I also hope to develop a career in communications and think that this role is a great way to gain some hands-on experience within the field.  

My independent ambassador project is focused on the Student Advisory Panel, which utilises student feedback to improve the Library services. My main goals for the project are to increase awareness of the panel, grow the membership size and implement a positive change to the library services, based on student feedback. If you’re a student reading this, you should definitely check out the panel! It’s a great way to improve the University experience for both yourself and other current/future students.

Aishwarya

Hello there, I’m Aishwarya and am doing my master’s in Data Science and Analytics. Library services like help with referencing and statistics have helped me immensely when I’ve been neck deep in citations, so the least I could do was tell other students about them!

Besides promoting library workshops and services by chatting with you all, I am working with the Maths and Statistics department on a project to analyze the usage of their services and figure out ways to improve it. Consequently, student feedback in the form of surveys and focus groups is an integral component of this project (look out for gift vouchers and free lunches if you’re involved!) I’ve also given library tours and observed workshops to increase student engagement. With many exciting tasks ahead, I am curious to see how the project develops and look forward to continuing working with the Library@Skills team!

Outside of work I’m into art, sports, Star Wars and dinosaurs.

References

Reynolds, L. 2008. BE2021. [Online]. [Accessed 19 October 2021]. Available from http://www.flickr.com