93% Club Society: Outreach Officer

Hi everyone! <3

I am standing for Outreach Officer as I would love to continue being on the committee of a society I believe is essential at a university like UCL. After growing up in Northern state schools being taught by supply teachers in classrooms covered in black mould, moving to such an ‘elite’ university with an Access UCL offer can feel incredibly isolating.

With my current role as 93%’s Outreach Officer, a 'Student Success' Panellist within the Access UCL and Participation team, a Student Success Day Speaker, and my active involvement in the Volunteering Working Group of both the Student Union and Volunteering Society, I hope that next year, we can launch outreach programmes and organise more social mobility events, workshops, and collaborations with other UCL and University of London (e.g. LSE and KCL) societies.

It has been so reassuring and refreshing to meet so many friendly & like-minded people who want to make UCL a more viable option for students (like me!) who didn't grow up surrounded by established networks and have been discouraged by friends, family, & even teachers from studying at UCL.

Therefore, as Outreach Officer, I hope our initiatives, events (& efforts!) continue to level the playing field & make us state schoolers feel more comfortable and confident during our time at UCL and in our futures!

Thank you so much for reading! :)

Kate x

Hi everyone, 

I would like to stand for Outreach Officer because after joining UCL, I feel a heightened awareness of the inequality present in such an elite community. I hadn't realised before the extent to which such institutions could feel so overwhelmingly prestigious and therefore have truly appreciated the ability of the society to facilitate a welcoming and inclusive environment. 

I have grown up in a state school environment all of my life, which I had naively taken as the norm until I reached higher education. I believe wholeheartedly in equality of opportunity and therefore feel especially strongly that state schoolers should recieve more tailored opportunities and events within the university, opportunities that should have been equally available to state and private school students at the point of standard education, but which have clearly not been afforded to us in the same way. 

I have a strong background of interpersonal communication, from over a year's customer service work, and equally from mentoring positions within school. As Outreach Officer, I would love to help direct a movement which brings more people on board and to our events, as I am sure there is a wider pool of state schoolers who could benefit from this society's offering but are yet unaware. I would love to be involved in helping foster a relationship between our state schoolers in UCL and the wider community. 

Thank you for reading, Phoebe