Welcoming new students
It was that time of year again when the doors open and thousands of new students start university in September. Information Services played its part in helping new students settle in to their new academic lives by taking part in two events aimed at newly matriculated students.
Edinburgh Napier University Students Association (ENSA) Welcome from College event - Friday 2nd September
We were invited back to this ENSA-organised event again in 2016 after our debut last year. Just under 200 direct entrant students were invited to the event held at Craiglockhart.
This year the event was held at Craiglockhart and Information Services was asked to deliver two workshops and have an Information Services foyer stand at the lunchtime networking event. Stephen Bruce, Belinda Merchant and Joyce Templeton delivered the workshops on ‘Making the most of the Library, IT and Moodle’ which showcased these essential areas for new students.
As the workshops were held in a computer lab, students also had some valuable hands-on time to explore a few resources for themselves and staff were on hand to answer questions. The foyer stand was staffed by Elaine MacNichol (Merchiston library), Cathryn Buckham (Craiglockhart library) and Nick Mellon (Central Support).
We connected lots of new students’ phones to eduroam, talked to them about the services and resources available to them and answered their questions.
New Students Welcome day – Saturday 3rd September
This event was organised by SAS, who sent invitations to around 3,000 new students during the summer. Students are asked to bring along their friends and families to Craiglockhart for a fun event where they can attend various talks, workshops and a welcome from the Principal. For more information, see the Welcome Day webpage.
Information Services had a stand at this event, located just outside the War Poets exhibition – a great location! We promoted the services and resources useful to new students just getting started with university life. The staff who volunteered to work at the event were Vivienne Hamilton (Craiglockhart Library), Nick Mellon and James Mann (Central Support), Mamph Stuart (Merchiston Library) and Joyce Templeton (Learning and Research Services).
What did we do? We were all busy…all day! We spoke to new students and their parents, friends and families answering any questions they had. We connected a lot of phones (set in various languages including Italian, Greek, French and Russian) to eduroam which was very popular, especially as it’s free! We showed them how to find a book on LibrarySearch and sorted out student matriculation issues. We also told students about the free software available to them, very handy for those parents who were just about to head off and buy a laptop for their children! The Principal even stopped on her way past to have a look at our stand. There was a real buzz about the day and it’s a really enjoyable event to be at. The day passed very quickly for us and at the end of it we headed home to a well-deserved glass of wine!