Thank you to everyone that has taken the time to complete one of our feedback forms; after reviewing all your comments and suggestions here is a summary of what you said and what we did.
Buddy Scheme Autumn Term in Numbers
206 Current Students
546 New Students
752 Total number involved
14 new students from this term have already applied to be Volunteers in January.
50 new students who will be arriving in January have already signed up.
76 different nationalities are involved in the Buddy Scheme.
100% of respondents to the Buddy Scheme Event Feedback form rated our events as Good or Excellent
85% of respondents our General and Exit Feedback forms said the Buddy Scheme has made bit or significance difference to their experience at Sussex.
The Good Stuff
We would just like to say thank you for all your positive feedback about our experience, here is an overview of some of the general comments:
Overall event satisfaction was rated as excellent
You found that our events were very good value for money
The events encouraged interaction and gave you the opportunity to try something new
You enjoyed the opportunity to meet new people from different cultures
You made some great new friends and merged your friendship groups
Improved your communication skills
Like having a ‘go to’ person to ask questions
Really helped with homesickness
Broadened your perspectives
Things you asked
Some of you have asked for more trips to Cambridge/Devon/Wales/Stonehenge/Oxford etc. We’re really glad you enjoyed those trips but we cannot take the credit as they were organised by the International Student Support Team! Our trips and events are focussed on providing new experiences and opportunities for buddies to socialise. The International Student Support Team’s trips are for International students in general. They have the budget to do trips to locations that are a bit further away and big cost events such as the theatre in London. We will make it clearer in future who’s hosting the events. You can see their trips here.
Unfortunately, we are unable to put on trips outside of the UK
A few of you suggested having regular ‘Buddy Scheme drinks’ so everyone on the scheme can get to know each other better. This is a great idea and we did trial it last year with monthly ‘Buddy’ socials in Falmer Bar. Unfortunately, it was very poorly attended so we decided not to continue with this. We are happy to arrange this again if the demand is there and are currently looking in to an appropriate venue like a cafe or a pub in Brighton.
There was a lot of feedback about not being contacted by their buddy or their buddy not replying to emails/not showing up when meetings are arranged etc. I’m really sorry to hear that this has happened to a few of you. We will be writing some guidance for Buddy Volunteers and new students which will make the expectations clearer including time commitment. When you do have issues like this, PLEASE let myself or Jane know – this is why we are here! Please contact us if you have any problems because we cannot rectify things if we do not know about them.
Here are the various ways you can contact us:
by emailing: buddyscheme@sussexstudent.com
or individually: jane.t@sussexstudent.com or natalie.s@sussexstudent.com
come and see us at the Activities Office, First Floor, Falmer House. Open 10am – 4.30pm weekdays during term time.
email via the website
use the discussion forum
Message us on Facebook
We will be introducing drop in sessions next term for you to drop by and have a chat with Jane, Volunteer Support Assistant.
Some of you commented that the Buddy Scheme wasn’t helping International students particularly well with their language learning, especially English. Although the scheme can help with language learning, it is not the main focus. The Language Cafe and Language Partner exchange program are here to help with practising languages so would be a good place to start- you could suggest them to your buddies! The Language Cafe will be running next term in Falmer Bar every Tuesday from 5.30pm – 7pm. Information for the cafe and the online language exchange program can be found here.
Sussex Centre for Language Studies offers some language help and study skills for International students. Have a look online.
Many of our trips and events take place on Wednesday afternoons – this is because academic timetables are supposed to be clear to give students the time for extracurricular activities, such as sport. However, I now realise that this is not the case for Postgraduates. It was suggested to have some events and trips take place on the weekend. This has not happened because the weekend is outside of normal working hours, but this is something we will look into.
There was some confusion around the group matching. We match in groups to give new students the opportunity to meet each other as they are all in the same situation being new to Sussex. If you do not want to meet in a group, that’s no problem, you just need to have a conversation with your buddy about this. If it is a problem, let us know. Some volunteers have asked if they should meet as a group first of all or individually. Again, this is entirely up to those involved and how comfortable they feel about it.
Some volunteers were surprised to receive a third buddy in their group at a later stage in the term. It should have been made clear that if you did not have three new students assigned to you, it is likely you will be matched with more. I’m sorry if this wasn’t clear so this is something I will bear in mind for next year.
It was commented that the name “buddy” scheme was a bit patronising. This was not meant to be patronising at all although we can see where you’re coming from. The reason we decided on “buddy” is because it is nationally recognised throughout other Students’ Unions and Universities and we tried to avoid confusion with other schemes at Sussex that already use names such as “mentor” and “peer”. Some organisations will assign new members of staff to a current colleague and refer to them as their ‘buddy’ so it also mirrors this set up.
The Buddy Scheme is not here to help students with their studies – this is what the mentoring scheme is for. More details here.
We listened to your suggestions for trips and events. We put on a second ice skating trip due to high demand and are looking in to organising another session on the 14th January. This has not yet been confirmed so please keep an eye out for this. Other suggestions you have given include the Harry Potter experience, dog walking with the RSPCA in Patcham, afternoon tea in a local cafe, another Lazerzone trip and Bouldering session. These form some of our Spring term event plan. Keep an eye out in your emails, Facebook and our website for further information.
There is a Frequently Asked Questions section on the website that answers some of these questions which you might want to have a look at our FAQs.