In the last week of November, the academic representatives and I ran a Rep Week campaign, which managed to collect 448 suggestions from students on how their course and time at Imperial can be improved.

These suggestions were typed up within a week and sent to your departmental representatives to bring up in their next Staff-Student Committee meeting, while also being sent to the Pro Rector (Education), who was interested in what improvements Imperial students want. We have also emailed the students who gave us their suggestions and email addresses to show their feedback has been useful and listened to. 

Myself and two members of Union staff decided that the 3 best suggestions were:

1) The careers department in bioengineering should ask 3rd & 4th year students to see what type of internships and work placements they have done – in the bioengineering field or otherwise, to get a feel for what they are interested in. Furthermore, the barriers between undergraduates and postgraduates need to be lowered, as this would help keep undergrads interested in bioengineering.

2) Clearer coursework deadlines and breakdown of percentages (i.e. for each piece of coursework). Standardised feedback for exam markers so that there's not so much ambiguity in the marks. There should be 5 p.m. deadlines and a better definition of what actually constitutes as outside reading.

3) Put the calendar on the outlook web service so that we can see updates to our timetable from our email.

If you don’t know who your Reps are, then click here and you can find out what impact they have made on your course here.