Hopefully, if you are reading this blog post then you are thinking of becoming a Class Rep. I really hope that you do decide to go for it as being a Class Rep is a great opportunity and experience! This post contains a few hints and tips to help in the role and hopefully will give you an idea of what the role entails.
Without further ado here’s my first tip...
Listen to everyone. This might sound a bit obvious but a large part of the role is representing your year group. In order to do this well you need to talk and listen to your whole year group, not just your own friend group. But it’s equally important to listen to lecturers, as you’ll need to work with them to resolve any issues that do come up. You need to be able to listen to their side of a situation to help resolve it in the best way for everyone.
My second tip is to be as proactive as possible. It’s too easy to just wait on a Student Staff Liaison Committee meeting to raise an issue. Often issues can be revolved just by an email or going to speak with the lecturer. The faster an issue is raised the quicker it can be resolved and the happier everyone is going to be.
My third and final tip is to try and communicate back to other students as much as possible. It’s very easy for an issue to be raised by the Class Reps but quite often no one will tell students what the outcome of this was! Try to feed as much information as possible back to your peers. It goes a long way in helping them understand the difference Class Reps can make and to reassure them that their concerns are being listened to!