Taking part in extracurricular activities is fundamental and we can’t stress it enough. It’s part of your experience and you can’t even imagine how beneficial it would be for you! Of course, academics is what you’re coming for but part of university life includes what you do apart from attending lectures and seminars. Extracurricular activities are included in your fee and they play a major role in your experience in the UK.

Student Union

Each university as its Student Union, is composed of “societies” which we can define as “groups of interests”. You can find societies related to your course or a particular subject/topic, more “passion” oriented societies such as the Harry Potter society, or the tea or a football team supporters society… you can pretty much find a group for anything! Culture-based societies are also very popular: these are groups of students who come from the same country or are just interested in getting to know a new culture and language. Sounds incredible, right? You can learn a new language by just subscribing to a society! Sports society are also a thing in British universities: choose your sport, decide if you want to play at a “social” level (you just practice whenever you feel like to) or at a “competitive” level (you follow a training routine and compete in official championships between universities). There’re societies both for a team or individual sports… you just need to choose, get your gear ready, and go move your body! Last but not least, the volunteering activities. If your interests meet the environment, education, animal life, economics, and many more areas, you can very easily find a volunteer association where you can express your passion and learn. Volunteering is great to develop the sense of belonging to your city, being part of and helping it at the same time. Working while studying is also another well-liked activity. We wrote a full article on this, click here to read all the tea! It is very important that students have a voice within the university and institutions. The Student Unions are there for that.

What are Student Union objectives?

1. Create moments of socialization within university campuses through different types of activities;
2. Representing students both internally at the university and externally with the various institutions;
3. Provide student services.

Are they independent?

Yes, they are independent of academic hierarchies; they are often seen as “student unions”.

Services and benefits

Being part of a society revolves around benefits from many points of view: from the request for the use of structures, premises, technical equipment for the most diverse purposes to the request for support from the departments of interest to create a new company or to carry out large events. Being part of society will allow you to grow from a personal but also a professional point of view: there will be various responsibilities that you will take on in order to achieve all the objectives of your group but, at the same time, there will be many satisfactions and memories. that you will jealously guard.