7.2 Your Students' Guild & Union
Here in HLS we work closely with the Students’ Guild to ensure you get the most out of your time at Exeter. Every student is automatically a member (it’s free), and being a member opens up many opportunities for you. The Guild staff have been working hard to develop activities and services for Welcome Week and beyond, with many student societies also running events. Please check the Guild’s Welcome Hub website for further details.
The Guild oversees over 300 different societies, and we strongly encourage you to explore all the taster events during your induction to find groups and activities that match your interests. You can find out more about these later in this week’s course. There really is something to suit everyone (yes, even the introverts amongst you!) and connecting with other students is the key to beginning to feel at home here. More information on how to get involved is available on our Welcome Week guide.
The Guild are hosting themed days during Welcome Week providing you with opportunities to try out and meet societies and other students, these are as follows:
On Monday 18 September, you’ll be able to meet Appreciation, Charity, Games, Volunteering, Media and Political Societies.
On Tuesday 19 September, you can find your Academic and Course Based Societies.
On Wednesday 20 September you can explore the Cultural and Faith Societies.
On Thursday 21 September, St Luke’s based societies will be on St Luke’s Campus and Active, Support and Causes Societies on Streatham.
On Friday you can find out more about Arts and Music Societies!
You can visit the Students’ Guild website for more updates.
Didn’t get to try a society during Welcome Week? There will be more opportunities in the first 6 weeks of term to meet societies and try something new. Remember, you can join societies at any point during the year.
But there’s more to the Guild than socialising and sport: they offer an Advice Service where you can get free, confidential guidance on areas as diverse as your finances, accommodation, welfare, and academic issues such as appeals, mitigation and misconduct. The Guild also offers specific support to students who are parents, carers, care leavers, asylum seekers, refugees, or are estranged from their families, so if this is you please don’t hesitate to get in touch to find out more: you can find the Guild’s Advice Service contact details here.
All of these amazing services and resources are supported by elected Guild Officers, who are elected by you each year to focus on your most important issues. Your Officers can’t do their job without you, so make sure to let them know how you’re finding your time at Exeter. Whether you’ve got a change you’d like to see or you want us to start doing something, you can get in touch with them via email.
All students at Exeter are part of a community – from your academic department and the local community of Exeter, to numerous student-led communities and networks – and the Exeter Students’ Guild exists to make the voice of your community heard on the issues that matter to you. Every course has a student rep – there to collect feedback from their course mates and work with departments to make any changes and improvements to your academic experience. Find out more about how to become a rep.
Whilst you are here at Exeter, we are also here to inspire you to feel and be yourselves, find your people, your passion and your place.
Our communities are student led and by sharing their experiences with us, help to ensure we’re doing everything we can to loudly and proudly support our diverse student community so that everybody feels like they belong.
We’ve created space for our student-led communities to connect, make those lifelong friendships and above all feel that Exeter is somewhere we can all call home.