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Hi,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0Amelia and I\u2019ve been the\u00a0Biochemistry\u00a0Academic\u00a0Rep for 2 years now. I was elected\u00a0as a\u00a0rep in first year after\u00a0submitting\u00a0a small personal statement, and since then\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0been a point of call for students on my course whenever they have an issue that they think the department should address. As\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0coming to the end of\u00a0second year, I thought I\u2019d give you the run-down of what the role entails, and what I\u2019ve been up to this year!<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Getting elected and\u00a0training<\/strong><\/p>\n Around the beginning of each year, the teaching office will get in contact with students and ask students to apply to be the student rep for their course. I know each department runs this slightly differently, but in BLS you submit a small paragraph about yourself and why\u00a0you\u2019d\u00a0like to be\u00a0a\u00a0rep.\u00a0When multiple\u00a0students\u00a0apply, these statements are then sent out to\u00a0students on\u00a0your\u00a0course,\u00a0and\u00a0they\u00a0are asked to vote. I was lucky in my second year, as I ran unopposed and therefore could continue with my role!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Once\u00a0you\u2019ve\u00a0been confirmed as a rep, the teaching office will register you with LUSU. This means that\u00a0they\u2019ll\u00a0be able to add you to the rep team, and you can complete your training. Each year,\u00a0you\u2019ll\u00a0complete a short Moodle module on what the role entails, who you can go to for support and your responsibilities as a rep. You need to complete this (as well as a few other things) before being rep will be recognised on your transcript!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There is also usually some additional, optional training. When I began, we had an in-person session one weekend, with a few different activities on working together, the roles of a rep and the different ways that you can collect feedback. This year, there were some online\u00a0teams\u00a0sessions, which allowed reps\u00a0to improve the way they function.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Termly events and responsibilities\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Each term, you have two main events that\u00a0you\u2019ll\u00a0attend: Faculty Forums, and Staff-Student committees.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Faculty forums run twice a\u00a0term and\u00a0are\u00a0led\u00a0by students and the rep team from LUSU, with\u00a0the academic\u00a0vice-president.\u00a0You\u2019ll\u00a0work in a team with the other reps to discuss some issues, review policies and provide feedback to your lead and faculty reps (more about these later!).\u00a0When in-person, these ran in the evening, and\u00a0you\u2019d\u00a0get pizza at the end as a thank you! While\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0online, they tend to run in an afternoon, and we use break out rooms to discuss things in smaller groups.\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0been at forums where we\u2019ve had presentations from Library staff before the new extension opened, or from IT staff about new projects they\u2019re working on.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a great setting to see how things are running across the department and the faculty.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Staff-Student committees are run by departmental staff, usually chaired by the head of teaching and learning, with the head and deputy-head of department, all the heads of the courses, usually staff from the teaching office and faculty librarians as well as all the department\u2019s reps. We\u2019ll discuss things like the LUMS module feedback and possible changes to courses or modules, but this is also the chance for both staff and reps to bring up\u00a0any\u00a0concerns they have, feedback they\u2019ve collected, and ask questions.\u00a0Myself\u00a0and the\u00a0other second year reps usually run surveys before\u00a0an\u00a0SSC so we can present any concerns to staff.\u00a0For example,\u00a0we ran one about online\u00a0exams\u00a0before the SSC\u00a0meeting\u00a0we had this term, as second years had\u00a0BLS\u00a0exams early.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n My\u00a0Day-to-Day\u00a0work\u00a0as a rep<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While being a rep could be seen as quite full on,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0very easy to manage. I started by setting up a\u00a0Facebook\u00a0chat for Biochemistry students in my year, and by trying to meet as many people as possible!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I keep an eye on our department group chat, with students from all courses in our year, to see if anyone has any\u00a0particular issues, and usually make a survey in response to a lot of complaints or comments on the same topic. I will also sometimes pop questions in the chat to see how people are feeling, and to let them know what\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0been up to as their rep.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Other than that, I just try to be about and listen to\/respond to questions that students have on the course, and make sure to direct them to the right place if I\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0help them myself. I have also attended a few meetings with a disciplinary board, when someone on the course\u00a0was\u00a0accused of cheating or plagiarism, to support the students on my course.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Moving on up\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n While\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0just a course rep\u00a0at the moment, there are opportunities for you to become more involved in the rep system. Each department has a Lead rep, who sits on some academic councils and helps you to collate your feedback. There is also a\u00a0Faculty\u00a0rep, who looks out for the interests of the whole\u00a0faculty and\u00a0helps to run faculty forums.\u00a0Both\u00a0roles are elected during the\u00a0first faculty forum of the year. A lot of vice president \u2013 academics also come from the rep community, as you know the\u00a0system well which helps with getting the most out of the role!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Finishing the year\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n When you finish the year, you need to fill out an exit survey, where you discuss what you did this year and\u00a0give feedback on the rep\u00a0system as a whole. These help the next reps to understand\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0been happening\u00a0in the department, and rep admin can see all the work you\u2019ve done over the year! This is the other element\u00a0you need to complete to have your role as rep recognised on your transcript.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Overall, I love being a rep! I find learning about the way the university is run so interesting, and\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0hoping to hold a higher role next year to make even more of a difference! (also, the free hoodie was\u00a0definitely a\u00a0selling point for me, although they\u2019re not free every year\u2026)<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0Amelia and I\u2019ve been the\u00a0Biochemistry\u00a0Academic\u00a0Rep for 2 years now. I was elected\u00a0as a\u00a0rep in first year after\u00a0submitting\u00a0a small personal statement, and since then\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0been a point of call for students on my course whenever they have an issue that they think the department should address. As\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0coming to the end of\u00a0second year, I thought I\u2019d give you Read more about My Role as an Academic Rep – Amelia Doran<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1421,"featured_media":794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[84],"tags":[290,187,32],"class_list":["post-793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-as-a-student","tag-academic-rep","tag-life-as-a-student","tag-university"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/bls-student-blog\/files\/2021\/06\/IMG_5706.jpg?fit=1927%2C1927","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9dFBD-cN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/bls-student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/bls-student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/bls-student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/bls-student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1421"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/bls-student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/bls-student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":797,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/bls-student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions\/797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/bls-student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/bls-student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/bls-student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/bls-student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}