Most students will agree that assessment time, usually at the end of a semester, can be the most difficult, stressful spell of your time at university. Whether you’re cramming for yet another exam or a few thousand words through your final dissertation, chances are it feels like it’s all resting on your shoulders.
However, Staffs University and the Students’ Union disagree and want to show their students that there are many ways to turn for help with academic responsibilities by introducing the Ask for Help campaign.
The campaign, which will run from 9th – 13th of November, will try to show students that asking lecturers, course leaders and personal tutors for help is an important part of achieving better grades, as well as familiarising them with services within the Union and University that they might not have known existed at all.
With stalls and lecture shout-outs scheduled, a leaflet is also available to download with a checklist of all the services at your disposal, with contact information and ways they can assist you.
Elected Union Vice-President Emma Simeng-Zhou has had a key role in the development of the Ask for Help campaign along with the design of the leaflet.
“So we’ve laid out the services within the University that we can offer to help you and you can complete the leaflet by ticking off all the services you have asked for help,” she said.
“I have approached individually the Student Advice Centre, Student Guidance Advisors, the Academic Skills Know-how team, the Student Enabling Centre, and all the departments that I think would help students during assessment time.”
“The Academic Skills Know-how team in particular, they’ve told me that they want more students to know about them. Sometimes students show up and tell them they have never heard of this kind of department and service.”
“So we want to build this bridge between the students and the services to help them communicate.”
“We’re also going to present case studies that show students who, because they didn’t ask for help, didn’t get good grades or even failed and other cases where they told someone they were struggling with their assessment, got help from the University services or their tutors and didn’t suffer at the end of it.”
“It’s exactly as the front of the leaflet says: asking for academic help is not cheating, stupid or wrong. It is smart and it is our commitment as the Students’ Union. Now is the time and the best suggestion is don’t leave it until the last minute of your assignment.”
Ask for Help webpage.