XClose

UCL News

Home
Menu

Start of session 2017 - a thank you from Wendy Appleby, UCL Registrar

24 October 2017

This September saw the arrival of more than 20,000 new students from all over the world, who were welcomed into the UCL community by staff from Student and Registry Services (SRS), Estates, the Students' Union, academic departments and many other areas of UCL.

UCL Main Quad At our peak, enrolment officers saw 2,995 students on Monday 25 September, in a new record for the highest number of students enrolled in one day. These new arrivals join our 20,000 returning students to make up UCL's largest ever student population.

Welcoming this number of students is, of course, no easy task. We worked very closely with teams from across UCL (in particular UCL Accommodation and the Students' Union) to ensure that all our students were able to settle in successfully and get their programme under way. Welcome events took place in halls of residence, across the campus and beyond, with everything from boat parties, to ice cream socials and a cycle cinema. These events organised by professional services and the students' union complemented the activities being delivered in faculties and departments.

Numerous orientation and induction activities took place in the last few weeks of September, both centrally and more locally, on faculty, department and programme levels. Within SRS, Student Support and Wellbeing (SSW) hosted the International Student Orientation Programme (ISOP) over four days, with interactive sessions designed to help those new to the UK familiarise themselves with our country, city and university.  ISOP also saw the return of the Banks Hub this year, with banks on campus to facilitate the account opening process.

UCL Cares keyrings

As part of wider efforts to make new arrivals feel at home, SSW had a substantially increased presence on campus in comparison with previous years. This included a new welcome tent, which acted as a central hub for students to ask questions, read through two new guides (the 'International Students' Guide' and the 'Here to Support You' guide to SSW) and, of course, pick up a freebie or two! These included a number of very popular badges and keyrings, designed by a UCL student.

Following on from the success of the 'Countdown to UCL' this summer (a blog hosted on the New Students website, with helpful themed articles by both staff and students), our expanded welcome initiatives have hopefully meant that both new and returning students have settled in more quickly and with fewer hiccups than ever before.

Many thanks to all of those involved in making the 2017 start of session a resounding success, including colleagues in SRS, Estates, the Students' Union, ISD, academic departments and elsewhere.

Wendy Appleby
UCL Registrar and Head of Student and Registry Services