Category Archives: Finalists

Students in seminar

Preparing for final year exams

Exams can take many shapes and forms, but one thing they all have in common is that they make a lot of people anxious. Fear of the unknown, poor preparation, lack of confidence in your abilities in the exam room are all causes of stress. The Student Learning Advisory Service (SLAS) has produced guidance including SkillsBuilder videos around exams that will help you manage those anxieties.

It’s a good idea to start your revision as early as possible. Here are a few other stress-busting tips:

Eliminate the unknown: Find out about the exams you are taking, when, where and how will they take place, and what modules and topics they will cover. If you are unclear, ask your module convenor for more information. You’ll feel better for knowing, and be able to organise your revision effectively.

Plan your revision: Work out which modules and topics you need to revise most. Using a calendar or term-planner, create a revision schedule so that you revise each topic efficiently in time for the relevant exam.

Test and practise: As you revise, test yourself to see what you know and what you still need to remember. Sitting an exam is a form of performance, so rehearse, by practising answering questions under timed conditions using past papers.

SLAS can offer advice on these and many other aspects of exams – just book an appointment with one of our advisers.

There are also plenty of events to help you get exam ready. And keep an eye out for any subject specific exam guidance events from your School.

See our exams webpages for full information including FAQs, events and support.

Stay on for a Master's?

Staying on for a Master’s at Kent?

Here at the Kent, we understand your passion to progress. Whether you’re wanting to advance your skills or develop your knowledge further, let us help you reach your full potential. Become a critical, creative and strategic thinker with high-level research, planning and communication skills – exactly the attributes all employers look for.

If you’re a final year undergrad considering staying on for postgraduate study, do make sure to check out the following:

  • Different courses that Kent offers – full time, part time, short courses or conversion courses for those looking for a different route altogether
  • Funding and scholarships that are available to you, with scholarships that could take off up to £5,000 off your tuition fees, you don’t want to miss out applying.
  •  Kent are hosting a series of events throughout Feb – May, including Postgraduate Open Events, Drop-in chat sessions at Nexus and subject specific talks. Do register or attend to find out more about specific course details.
  • The extensive employment opportunities that include work placements, career support, networking and 1-2-1 coaching.

Find out more about the benefits of staying at Kent, hear from student who decided to stay on for a Master’s and sign up to register for updates on our website.

 

Lead Kent

Lead Kent nominations: find out more about the roles

Be a part of something big at Kent Union and nominate yourself to Lead Kent. This is all about students working for students to make their university experience the best it can be as an Elected Full-time Officer.

Based in the Mandela Students’ Centre, the Officer team liaises with leaders in the university and higher education across the UK and Europe to make sure that student voices are being heard.

These are full-time, paid positions. You do not need to be a final-year student to run, you can interrupt your studies.  Nominations close on the 21 February at midday.

Officer role descriptions

Students’ Union President

  • Promotes, extends and defends all student rights.
  • Acts as the lead student voice to Kent Union and the university.
  • Leads the Officer team.
  • Leads on campaigns to improve overall student experience.

See Students’ Union President full role description.

Vice-President Postgraduate & International Experience

  • Leads on issues of PG and international accommodation, wellbeing, education, training and employment.
  • Leads on supporting European satellite campuses and internalisation work.

See VP Postgraduate and International Experience full role description.

Vice-President Welfare & Community

  • Represents students on all welfare matters.
  • Leads on student housing, well-being and EDI, as well as environmental and sustainability work.
  • Works with liberation networks.

See VP Welfare and Community full role description.

Vice-President Student Engagement

  • Leads on sports, societies and volunteering groups.
  • Leads on employability and alumni engagement.
  • Represents students on all co-curricular activities.
  • Supports all student groups and runs campaigns.

See VP Student Engagement full role description.

Vice-President Academic Experience

  • Represents students on all UG education matters.
  • Supports and empowers academic communities, including societies and student reps.
  • Leads on the Kent Union education strategy.

See VP Academic Experience full role description.

You’ll be part of a dedicated team

Being an Officer is great fun and incredibly fulfilling but it’s also a lot of hard work.

There are a host of career staff working behind the scenes supporting the Officer team to help on their campaigns, and work towards making their goals a reality. We also offer training sessions and continued growth and development throughout each Officer’s term.

Nominate yourself to Lead Kent.

Find out more on Kent Union’s Lead Kent webpage.

 

Exams: Religious Observation request deadline Fri 2 Feb

Some religious days or festivals will fall during the May/June exam period and we understand that students may wish to observe these. We will therefore make every effort to avoid timetabling exams or assessments on such dates where a religious observation request has been made ahead of the deadline.

The deadline for submitting a religious observation request for the 2024 exam period is Friday 2 February 2024. Find the request form and further information on Religious Observations here.

Student smiling to camera

Join Kent’s New Mentoring Scheme: Celebrating Mentoring Month

January marks Mentoring Month, and there’s no better time to invest in your personal and professional growth. If you’re a student looking to make strides in your academic and career goals, sign up for the Career Mentoring Scheme, which partners students with alumni who work in their chosen industry or sector.

By participating in the mentoring scheme, you’ll gain a unique perspective on your chosen profession, develop key skills and knowledge, and prepare for life after graduation.

You can take part in the programme for one or two terms, depending on your needs and availability. The programme is available to all undergraduate and postgraduate students, with applications accepted throughout the year.

The Career Mentoring Scheme is an excellent opportunity to build your professional network, connect with alumni in your field, and receive valuable advice and guidance. Take advantage of this opportunity to enhance your career journey and apply today!

Take the NSS today

In your final year? Here’s why you should fill in the NSS

The National Student Survey (NSS) is now open at Kent and final year undergraduate students are invited to complete it.

The NSS is your chance to have your say on what you liked or didn’t like about studying at Kent. Take the NSS now. 

The NSS: what you need to know

📣The University and Kent Union value your feedback and the NSS is one of the most powerful ways to have your say. See the Your Uni Your Say webpages for ways we have acted on your feedback.  

📧If you are eligible, Ipsos will email you on Thursday 25 January and will continue to email, text and call you until you complete it (so we recommend you do it early). 

🔒The survey is completely anonymous and confidential. It is run by Ipsos, an independent research agency.

🎓 NSS is mainly open to final year undergraduates.

🕕The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete. However, please take the time to consider your answers and reflect on your whole experience at Kent.

Santander Scholarships

Not long left to enter! 10 chances to win £1,000

Register with the Santander Scholarships programme by 20 November for chance to win £1,000!

10 Kent students will win £1,000 for simply registering online with Santander’s Scholarship programme. Through the programme you can:

  • Apply for scholarships and grants
  • Gain work experience
  • Learn the skills graduate employers want

Register now! 

Student Learning Advisory Service…at your service!

Did you know that the Student Learning Advisory Service (SLAS) is hosting no fewer than twenty five on-campus workshops at Canterbury and sixteen at the Medway campus this term? Most of these workshops are being delivered as hybrid sessions so you can join even if you cannot make it in person. 

As we speed towards the second part of the Autumn term and assessment deadlines start to loom large on the horizon, it’s a great time to seek help from our advisers. Among the various academic skills workshops we have on offer are: 

  • Writing introductions and conclusions 
  • Paragraph writing 
  • Presentation skills 
  • Effective reading 
  • Critical thinking 
  • Using AI as a legitimate tool 
  • Advanced essay writing 
  • Good academic practice using TurnitIn 

Plus we also cover a range of maths and stats topics such as: 

  • Probability 
  • Anova and Chi-square testing 
  • Calculus – stationery points and slopes 
  • Calculus – differentiation 

See all SLAS in-person events and book online.

SLAS is here to help you become your best ‘academic you’ and to achieve your goals. 

LibrarySearch Discover

LibrarySearch Discovery: take your research to the next level

We’re thrilled to let you know about some upcoming enhancements to LibrarySearch to help transform your research. From 1 November we’re launching LibrarySearch Discovery, a pilot scheme running from November 2023 until April 2024.

LibrarySearch Discovery will provide access to 50 million+ curated Open Access resources in addition to the extensive collections already available from University of Kent libraries, making it easier than ever to find the right information for your next assignment or research project.

Open Access (OA) resources are freely available, digital content from around the globe. They are part of a wider ‘open’ movement to encourage the free exchange of knowledge and resources to widen access and encourage creativity.

Open access - examples including good information supply, free and fast access to scholarly information and efficient research and innovation

Key benefits of LibrarySearch Discovery

  • Free access to 50 million high-quality academic journals, ebooks, datasets and educational resources
  • Clearer layout that’s easy-to-use with search results separated by collection type
  • Seamless, accessible browsing of collections anywhere, from any device
  • Intuitive interface to filter and rank your search results.
  • Direct links to available online content regardless of format.

Finding resources will work in exactly the same way, with a simple keyword search in a single search box.

Screenshot showing LibrarySearch Discovery search results screen showing location of new tabbed search content: Library collections; Digital collections and Open Access resources.

The new search results page will initially show you all relevant items held in our Library collections but you can also view search results from our Digital Collections and Open Access resources just by clicking through the three tabs.

We hope that you’ll like the look and improved functionality of the new LibrarySearch Discovery interface. If you would prefer to use the original LibrarySearch or LibrarySearch Digital you can choose the ‘Classic’ or ‘Digital’ views available at the top of the screen.

What’s next

We are really pleased to be able to share these amazing resources with you and hope that you’ll take full advantage of the opportunities LibrarySearch Discovery provides.

We’ll be demonstrating how to get the most out of Open Access content during the year and in our library training.

We are committed to providing you with the resources you need for your academic study and research, and to working closely with you to ensure we have a successful pilot.

If you have any questions please get in touch: helpdesk@kent.ac.uk

Staff at helpdesk

Managing academic deadlines

Tim from our Student Learning Advisory Service (SLAS) shares top tips for managing academic deadlines…

Academic assignments do not always arrive one at a time with their deadlines conveniently spaced out. So here are a few tips that will help you manage multiple deadlines.

Break assignments down: Consider the stages of work that you’ll need to undertake to complete each assignment. These may include tasks such as planning, researching, drafting, editing, and checking. If you identify and understand the individual steps that are required to complete your assignment it will appear less daunting. This, in turn, will prevent you from procrastinating and enable you to start work on it. Starting assignments as early as possible will help you meet your deadlines.

Use a term planner: Seeing your academic deadlines clearly marked on a planner or calendar (alongside all your other fixed commitments such as lectures and seminars) will allow you to plan accordingly to meet them. So, working back from the deadline, allocate time for each stage of work on your planner. If you are working on multiple assignments, you can colour-code each one to give you a clear overview of which assignments you need to be working on during any given day or week. Your term planner will help you stay on track to meet your deadline, but if you find yourself falling behind schedule you can review and amend it.

Work efficiently: Meeting deadlines is not just about allocating time for each stage of an assignment. It also means using that time as efficiently as possible, by breaking each day into chunks of time and allocating a specific task to each of them. Each task should be goal focussed – whether that goal is meeting an assignment deadline or revising for an exam. It should also be achievable. For example, for a two-hour study period set yourself the task of reading and taking notes on a useful chapter of a book (which you can do), rather than the entire book (which you probably can’t). This technique will help you build momentum and feel that hour after hour, day after day, you are taking a series of small but successful steps towards meeting your deadline. Allow time for breaks and vary your activities during the day – perhaps mixing some reading and notetaking tasks with some planning and writing tasks – to help you stay fresh, engaged and productive.

Finally, don’t suffer in silence: Deadlines rarely move, so start assignments as soon as you can, and address problems when they arise. If you don’t understand a question, seek clarification from your lecturer. If you feel you don’t know how to start planning or writing your essay, or feel stuck half-way through writing one, seek advice on essay writing from the Student Learning Advisory Service.

Good luck with your assignment!