Hi all! Let’s take a moment to go through what I’ve been up to after surviving Chickenpox, in this cold month.

Projects

International Student Handbook:

I hope by now the word has gotten around and that you have already heard of the International Student Handbook, but if you haven’t, I wouldn’t be surprised. For context, I had gone into the creation of the Handbook alongside VP Welfare and VP Education knowing that this is most probably going to get forgotten and sit in some dusty old shelf, if we stop talking about it.

And so, we have come up with the brilliant idea to digitize the Handbook, by introducing the International Student Handbook Online Series on the @essexsu Instagram page, where I’ve committed to creating 5 episodes in short form engaging reels. Topics include:

This is to raise awareness of the Handbook’s existence, but to also give viewers the opportunity to engage in the tips and learn a thing or two. The videos could be particularly useful for those who prefer TikTok style content, and for others who otherwise wouldn’t be interested in reading a whole manual in a .pdf format.

With the changing times and attention spans, I believe that investing this time into this project is totally the right call for strengthening inclusivity, and to boost engagement, as feedback and analytics suggest that the videos are performing quite strongly, and it’s proving to bring a positive impact to the overall student experience. I’m quite pleased with that.

Kicking off the Bidet Project

For context: In September, Hareem and I worked on piloting a survey to gather interest of the installation of 3 Bidets in SU Toilets between SU Bar and Greenhouse Café.

The survey gathered 200+ responses, 193 in favour, 7 against.

There was however a concern with the initial scope of the project, as raised in the previous SU Council, as the installations would be taking place in the gender-neutral toilets only, and that this could create an increased amount of traffic which might make the premises unsafe for those who prefer using the gender-neutral space.

Upon a brief meeting with the SU Trans Officer, Theo, we have decided to change the scope to installing one in each stall of Mens, Womens and gender-neutral bathrooms, which we believe gives people the option to choose whether to use the bidets or not. As there’s 2 stalls in the men’s, 6 in the women’s and 3 in the gender neutral bathrooms. There would now be 3 bidets installed, distributed across the 3 spaces.

I’m now in the process of speaking with the Estates team, in hopes to get it started and negotiate the costs to split it between the SU and the University.

International Student’s Day

To commemorate the day, I worked with the SU Bar team to do a Milk It x International Student’s Takeover.

I took a keen interest in this project as I’m an International student myself, and I proposed to DJ for the night, and worked with the International Students SCO to ask for students to send in their favourite songs from their culture, to be added in the playlist.
 
The SU Bar was decorated with flags and cultural elements, with hundreds of flags put up all around the SU Bar provided by SU Engagement and lighting adjusted for evening vibe.

The night was a success and gives us the opportunity to do more Milk It x Takeovers in the future.

Those are the three big things I liked to mention with many little side-projects I worked on the side, looking forward to the future!

With love,
Ata