When I started studying my degree, I didn’t know everything about University College Birmingham’s facilities. The reason? I never went to an open day. I was still lucky because I could learn about them at the Graduate Advantage sessions. But there were still things I didn’t know about our campuses because during the lockdown, they were not necessary at that moment, as my lessons were online.
I will start speaking about the virtual facilities I used. You probably know about them, but I can give you my feedback.
We have a Microsoft licence until we graduate, and it has been good for me because I didn’t want to spend money on one. I have been relying on free software, but sometimes the documents created are a bit different, and in some cases, it can cause issues when the teachers read our work. We even have Grammarly Premium for free, and it saved my life as I am not native British (I am using it even right now). A funny fact about this is that it even detects plagiarism, and it seems that one day I copied a sentence for Food Manufacture from a journal about jet propulsion. In those cases, don’t worry about it but always check similar sentences.
I undervalued a vital resource until one of my classmates lost her work a couple of days before the submission: the cloud! We have OneDrive for free, and it can be helpful not just as a backup, but even if you want to work on assignments at uni and don’t want to bring your laptop.
I never needed to print anything, but it’s pretty easy to do, and you can find the instructions in the library.
By the way, a lot of books in the library are available even online through your account, but you can find the physical version at The Link. In the library, you can even book an appointment if you need to research for some assignment or a hint if you haven’t decided on your subject. In this building, you can also find the Mental Health and Wellbeing service. I used it as I was struggling with many changes in my life, and I had a bit of anxiety about time management, and I am very grateful for this service.
A service I used and will continue to use is hiredConnect. They helped me with my CV and how to find opportunities to build my future career, but they even help with mock interviews, and they provide you with a guide about how to start your own enterprise and find funding.
Last but not least, the Kick Start funding. I left this until last because I will write about this again, as there are many things to say about it and because everyone has already received the invitation from Kick Start to buy uniforms and stuff for the start of the academic year. For now, I will write that you will receive funding that you can use in many different ways.
In the next post, I am going to speak about other services I didn’t mention there (but there is a reason) and about every room I could see during my work at University College Birmingham as a student ambassador (no secrets, you’ll discover about places that are not related to your course and shared facilities).
Keep in touch and start to take advantage of University College Birmingham’s resources!