Officers | VP Representation

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

My first blog

Hello and welcome!

This is the first instalment of my blog, I’m sure you’ve been waiting with baited breath. It’s a new concept to me and I’ll use it as a way for you guys to get inside my officer head, so be kind, but honest and I’ll return the favour in the shape of a lot of words!

It’s been an amazing month and a half of training, learning and getting to grips with all things KCLSU and for KCLSU to get to grips with us. I’ve got to thank the outgoing officers and the permanent staff that have contributed to our brain ache and the ever-growing bags under our eyes! Haha! On a serious note though they are amazing and have helped us immensely and continue to do so! I don’t think Lee Peterson will move over from his 2 year throne that quickly.

I have to say I thought I knew quite a bit about the way KCLSU operated before from working in the venues but there is so much more and so little time!

Playing on my mind at work at the moment, and has received much media coverage is the issue of how many hours students are having to work to pay for their education. It is a huge issue that NUS has taken upon themselves to investigate by highlighting student employment horror stories. Not the approach I myself want to take as it isn’t a shock to me that 20% of students are working more than 20 hours a week. From all the reports in the news it seems as though the general public and Government didn’t realise that students don’t all get money from their trust funds and spend it all on having a really good time at uni. Of course we need jobs and work all the hours we have spare to pay for rent and food and that pint or two that we had last night. And no, the student loan is not enough to cover it all. And yes, the proportion of students at work will go up with the introduction of top up fees this year. And one more and….. And who knows what will happen in 2010 when the cap on fees is removed.

I’m not saying that students shouldn’t have jobs at uni as it’s a great thing to do but it does hinder (there’s a word I don’t normally use) one’s academic career when they are working, however many hours a week when their friends are in the library reading up on the land use models of urban Japan (I did Geography). I worked a lot of hours throughout my time at uni and I don’t hold that responsible for me not getting higher grades, however if I didn’t have a job or didn’t have to work the hours I did there could have been a completely different outcome. The NUS maybe need to focus more on voicing the issues that are costing students rather than their employment rights as then they could be selective about where they work if it wasn’t for the financial burdens and desperation.

I’ll stop there for now but would appreciate any feedback, good or bad. Or any issues that you’d like my take on.

Hope the summer vacation treats you well.

Jo

Xxx

p.s. If you need a good job with flexible hours, with people who won’t exploit you then apply to be a member of KCLSU student staff. It didn’t do me any harm…….

posted by VP Representation at 11:34 AM