Personal Academic Tutoring

Your Personal Academic Tutor is usually an academic member of staff in your department (a lecturer, associate professor, or professor). Your department will assign you a Personal Academic Tutor once you are fully registered and, typically, before you begin your course. They will tell you who your Personal Academic Tutor is and how to arrange your first meeting with them. Your first meeting is essential to form the foundations for a relationship that will support you throughout your time at UCL.  

You can look up your Personal Academic Tutor's details through Portico.   

Usually, you will have the same Personal Academic Tutor throughout your time at UCL. In some cases,  it may be necessary for you to be allocated a new Personal Academic Tutor. If your Personal Academic Tutor does change, your new tutor will make every effort to get to know you as soon as possible – and we encourage you to make every effort to know them, too. 

Email 

Your Personal Academic Tutor will use your UCL email address as their main way of contacting you, and you are encouraged to contact them through their UCL email address as and when required.  

Top tip: Get into the habit of checking your UCL email address regularly.

Meetings 

Your Personal Academic Tutor will offer you at least three meetings per year, typically one per term (for a full-time programme of study).  

These meetings may be individual meetings or in small groups with other tutees (at least one meeting per year should be a one-to-one meeting between you and your tutor). The meetings could be held in person in a UCL office, meeting room, or workspace, or online through a UCL-hosted platform (such as MS Teams).  

Personal Academic Tutors are asked to keep a record of student attendance at these meetings.  

Top tip: If you are unable to attend your Personal Academic Tutor meeting, you must email them to let them know, and to arrange an alternative meeting where required.  

Your Personal Academic Tutor may also offer optional “Student (or Office) Hours” for you to ‘drop-in’ with queries or questions outside of the formal meeting times. Some Personal Academic Tutors may offer bookable meeting slots for their tutees within their Student Hours.  

If you have tried to meet your Personal Academic Tutor and you discover that they are not available, then you should contact your Department Tutor as soon as possible. They will be able to help you connect with your Tutor, or will identify an alternative tutor, if necessary. 

A key aspect of effective personal academic tutoring is meaningful engagement from both you and your tutor. 

Engaging with your Personal Academic Tutor helps you:

• Track your academic progress: your tutor can provide a space for you to consider what’s going well or what might need some extra work or support to help you move toward your academic goals.
• Access tailored support: your tutors can guide you toward relevant tailored or specialist services, such as study skills workshops, wellbeing support, or careers advice.
• Reflect and grow: Personal Academic Tutoring meetings can encourage students to reflect on their learning, set goals, and develop independence for their future learning and work approaches.
• Navigate university life: Tutors can help students make the most of UCL opportunities - academic, social, and professional. 

References

Your Personal Academic Tutor can provide a reference for you, but only if they have got to know you. This is another reason why it’s important to meet with your Personal Academic Tutor and build a professional relationship with them.  

Your Tutor will be able to write an academic reference for you, so long as they feel they have got to know you, your interests, and your aspirations. They will also need to have access to further relevant information, such as your CV, job description or any other application criteria. Remember to send these to your tutor along with any reference request well ahead of any deadline. Your Personal Academic Tutor may decline to provide a reference if they do not feel best qualified to comment on you. 

Top tip: If you need to request an academic reference from your Personal Academic Tutor, aim to submit the request via email at least two weeks before the deadline.  

A good, professional approach would be to ask your Personal Academic Tutor if they are willing to be an academic reference on your CV, and then always let them know when you are applying for a job, an award or a course to check that they can provide a reference within the necessary timescale. Asking for a reference with less than two weeks’ notice may mean that your tutor cannot provide one for you in time – so plan and give as much notice as possible to your tutor. 

Top tips for how to build a good working relationship with your Personal Academic Tutor: 

• Attend scheduled meetings – aim to be present and prepared for your Personal Academic Tutoring meetings. 
• Reply to emails in a timely and respectful manner – develop this professional skill which will be important in your working life. 
• Be open and honest – share your academic experiences, challenges, and goals.  
• Engage proactively – ask questions, seek feedback, and follow up on advice. 
• Respect boundaries – understand your tutor’s role and availability; they’re not expected to solve every issue but can guide you to the right support. 
• Make the most of ‘coaching-style conversations’ to help you develop independence and confidence in yourself. For example, you might be asked “What’s going well?” or “What might help you move forward?”, these types of questions aim to help you think about your student journey, what you might learn from your own experience, and what you might try differently in the future.  

Even if everything is ok at the time of your meeting or email with your Personal Academic Tutor, you may face challenges or difficulties later in your studies where having already established a good working relationship with your tutor means you feel more comfortable approaching them, should problems arise.  

Some students, and staff, find it useful to prepare for their meeting by considering and writing down what’s going well and what could be improved before the meeting. They can then use these notes to aid discussion in the actual meeting. You can also use our guide Conversations with your Personal Academic Tutor to help you consider topics you may like to discuss with your tutor.

Other areas of support in your department include:

• Department Tutor: Department Tutors are responsible for taught student academic support (personal academic tutoring) and student welfare in their Department. This includes oversight of SoRAs and Extenuating Circumstances. They also manage complex student cases.
• Department Support Teams: Departmental academic and professional support teams provide students with advice and guidance on their course and department-specific support. The composition of these teams can vary between departments, but they typically include programme leads, programme and department administrators, and any department-based student advisers.
• Student Advisers: Based in Departments, Student Advisers help first-year undergraduate students transition into university life and support student wellbeing and student experience. They are part of the central Student Support and Wellbeing Service.