I started back at college last week and lessons properly kicked off on Tuesday, and it turns out my college timetable means I only have to go in one day a week!
Whilst this seemed great at first, I’ve quickly come to the realisation that I’m going to have a lot of free time, even with the time spent doing assignments from home.
Obviously my first thought was to get a job. However it seems those aren’t that easy to come by, not that I’ve been trying very hard either.
So instead of investing time in the pursuit of a part time-low pay job, I’ve decided to get more involved at the college.
The hope is that being more involved will give me a better chance of getting onto the PGCE after graduation, as well as looking good to prospective employers.
This week I nominated myself as class rep against 3 others from my class. The votes fell 8 | 5 | 1 | 1 in my favour and the person with 5 votes was chosen to be the deputy rep.
Whilst a lot of people have put me off being class rep, saying it’s hard work for little return I think I could be good at it, and I’m determined to get behind my class and try and improve our experience of education.
I also nominated myself yesterday for the position of HE Communications Officer at the student union. This weekend I will be creating my manifesto and posters to display around the college to try and get people to vote for me!
I really want this job, as it involves communicating with the student body via twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, as well as the student union website and possibly a magazine and radio station.
I think that I may actually be the only person who’s applied for that particular post, but I still need the votes to get elected and campaign week starts 10th October so I’ll blog again about my manifesto and how campaigning goes.
It anyone has run a campaign for a position on the student union or has any tips or general advice, please leave a comment!
Lally.
From my experience at University in the 90`s it would be best to canvas the main interest groups at your college who can help sway the vote in your favour. At my university talking to the the Athletic Union and Jewish Society help pull in enough votes to get me elected to the executive, while being neither Athletic or Jewish! The big clubs/groups/society’s if well organised can be your biggest block votes. Don’t get me wrong being out and about on the days of voting engaging students in the democratic process is just as important pulling those extra votes which if your opposed could make all the difference.
One final tip don’t forget to vote for yourself, I once got beaten by RON (reopen nominations) by a single vote (ok the only vote cast) as I forgot to vote for myself in a the departmental rep election!
Thanks for the advice. Think I’m going to try and target the engineering and computing students, as that’s my department of study and being one of the only girls in the faculty I’m sure a few of them will already recognise me.
Think they’re also the likeliest to vote, as it’s done online in a ‘two click’ type poll.
Will try and hunt down a few societies as well. Although as it’s an associate college, not a university I’m not sure there are many, if any societies on campus.
Cheers, Lally.