It is especially at the times of hardship that UCL’s Academic Reps are stepping up to their roles. Despite limited access to campus, they continue to represent their fellow students and work tirelessly to improve their experience at UCL. Each month, we’re featuring your reps and the work they’re doing to make UCL better. If you have an idea about how to improve your course, your department or UCL you can contact your own Academic Rep using our Find Your Rep page.
February’s Rep of the Month is Lorenzo Faggiano, the Postgraduate Faculty Rep for Social & Historical Sciences. Among other things, Lorenzo has been working hard to improve students’ digital skills to ensure they have all the necessary know-how to continue their studies.
You can read what else Lorenzo been working on below:
“After collecting feedback from fellow students about the lack of opportunities to acquire digital skills which do not necessarily fall under the umbrella of your course/subject of study, I pushed for a Changemakers project at the faculty level. This is aimed at increasing the availability and accessibility of course teaching skills the students want to acquire, but do not currently have. It is extremely useful for a future perspective, such as when entering the job market where skill diversity is highly regarded.
Moreover, I collaborated with one of the vice-deans to increase transparency on how the budget is managed, giving the students a voice in how our money is spent. While this effort is still ongoing, it could lead to the inclusion of a student in the budget committee (at least at the faculty level).
Last, in the context of the strike, I'm pushing for peer-teaching to take place. Instead of crying over our shoulders about how much knowledge we are missing, a good idea is to collaborate and self-organize to establish courses where fellow students could teach a subject or a skill to whoever is interested in learning it! It would be an awesome opportunity to learn and possibly create new bonds and friendships.”