NSS babe

Universities get most of their money from student tuition fees. That means having to compete for students, rather vigorously. One of the means to do that with is the National Student Survey(NSS). All graduating students are asked to fill it out. And the results are widely used in advertising. If you score high on anything at all (student societies, feedback, facilities, housing, whatnot) you shout it from the rooftops. But it is important you get a lot of input from said NSS. Quite many students can't be asked, though; it's the generations after them that will benefit. So the School wanted to put up a song and dance in order to convince more students to give their feedback. They had given my colleague Sarah for that; she needed a deputy, and that became me. So I had to go and give it my best shot!

When the students did their dissertation talks we tried to make them fill out the form in the lunch break. The first day that meant I was doing my own session until the lunch break, and then quickly put on a different hat and lugged my laptop around trying to get students to fill out the survey there and then. We had to use our own material as the School tablet seemed to be in Spain!

The next day I didn't have a morning session myself, so I first drove to the main building, picked up some promo material, decorated the lunch space with it, did my best convincing students, and then packed it all up again. And the next Monday I had to do it again, when the MSc students had presentations. That was a bit of a pity; in the morning I had a field trip with the students in Cwm Idwal, and it wold have been fun to go there on bicycle. But no way I would make it back to Menai Bridge on time then!

And in the end? Well, I hope we managed to make a difference in response numbers. And I hope the responses are positive!