So I had the opportunity to interview FXU’s President of Student Experience: Amanda. She tells about herself, what repsonsibilities her role brings, and what she’s accomplished since she’s been in her position.
Age: 24.
Zodiac sign: Libra.
Favourite colour: Turqouise.
HC: As the President of Student Experience at FXU, what do some of your responsibilities include?
A: My main responsibility is to be the student representative on, I think, all of the fun stuff— so sports, societies, and sustainability. It’s such a braod role that sometimes it’s hard to have a ‘main bit’ that I do! Ultimately, I always say that there’s no way the Universities can fit 6000+ students in a room; when they need the students’ opinion on stuff I’m elected to be that voice. I spend a lot of my time involved in conversations about slightly random aspects of student life but I look at them as a way to always make it easier for people to get involved in the extracurricular side of things. That’s why I’m the main liaison between students and the Universities’ Joint Service provider. I take the lead on representing students on all things retail, catering, halls, facilities, and much more.
HC: So, how long have you been in your position and what have you accomplished for the students since you first became Pres. of Student Experience?
A: I’ve been President since July 2015, so 18 months! The main ‘theme’ of my job is to make it easy for everyone to join in with extra activities, so I’ve managed to achieve a couple of different things that have hopefully helped with this. First, I’ve carried on the tradition of working with clubs, societies, student led volunteer groups, and RAD to put on a whole massive variety of free/cheap events that anyone can join. Most recently this included hosting Give It A Go Week, A.K.A ‘refreshers’; it’s also been where FXU have tried out new innitatives for the first time, like hosting our version of the national campaign This Girl Can – FXYouCan. This year in particular I’ve had a massive focus on FXU’s communication with people and also lobbied both Universities to improve their communications too. My reasoning behind this has always been that half the time what people want is already out there somewhere and its just a case of making sure we are all doing everything we can to help people hear about the right things! I’ve also taken a slightly different approach to increasing participation than maybe some of my predecessors did; I’ve focussed heavily on things like the cost of travel and transport, lack of space for societies, and increasing support and recognition for individual student led projects. The cost of travel lobbying myself and FXU did last year led to the all year £1 pound fare being introduced and making extra transport available for students in Truro. I genuinely believe breaking down all these extra barriers is the easiest way to help everyone get more involved in every opportunity they have.
HC: Are you are Falmouth University graduate or are you still attending? If you’re a graduate, how did you assume the role of Pres. of Student Experience and what inspired you to run for it?
A: I graduated from the BA Photography course before starting this role and the thing that made me want to run most was from my time being involved in RAD (Raise And Donate). I worked with a group of mates to help set this up as a new branch of FXU and it just showed me all the other opportunities available that I could do. I’d always been a member of clubs and societies so was pretty keen on getting as involved as possible. I absolutely loved my time on my course, but if I’m honest it was the extra stuff I was involved with that made the difference. As for going for the President role, doing everything I could to help other people get involved just seemed like a realistic next step!
HC: If you could be any animal, which would you be?
A: I feel like I have to say a panda purely because its my nackname. My friends wouldn’t forgive me if I said anything else!
HC: What’s something that you’re looking forward to? It can be next year, in the next 6 months, or literally next week.
A: In the immediate future I’m really looking forward to the elections to be honest. This will be the first year I’m not on either a campaign team or running myself! I’m just really keen to help as many people as possible understand the importance of the elections and ensure that they really vote for potential presidents who will represent them fully. Ultimately, I’m also looking forward to my next challenge; I’ve still got 5 months to go here of course, but I really am the kind of person who needs to be constantly challenged and learning new things. I’ve lived in Cornwall for a while now so once I’m finished at FXU it’s probably time to live and work somewhere else in the UK.
Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Amanda!