Candidate for the position of Vice President (Education)

Alexandra Mazilu

#votealex for Vice President Education

Hi, my name is Alexandra (but you can call me Alex), and I am currently a 3rd year student in Mathematics and Computer Science.

Since studying at Derby University, I have been a Student Officer for Engineering, Computing and Mathematics, Student Rep for my course, Unibuddy, student ambassador, President of the Photography society and part of the university’s enquiry team.

Why vote for me?

As someone who has worked closely with the educational side of the union for the past two years, I have learned the needs of the students, how to approach them and how to find a solution for them. Also, as a student officer, I have worked closely with the current Vice President Education, learning the skills and attributes one needs to lead the role.

As a VP Education, I would like to use the knowledge and skills learned in the past years to change the learning environment, make the university experience more accessible, fun, and enjoyable, and allow the students to show their best.

By using my own university experience as well as feedback from students from different backgrounds and courses, I would like to bring the following ideas:

Education

Problem: Most of the time, exams are used to test someone’s ability to memorize information by sitting them in an exam hall and writing down as much information as they remember within a time constraint. However, not all courses, modules and jobs require the skill of mass information storage. During the pandemic, students had the chance to experiment with open book exams and give feedback on their experience.

Solution: I would like to use this experience to create course-specific feedback forms regarding open book exams and apply the idea on courses that return positive feedback, resulting in exams running under the same circumstances as prior to the pandemic (timed exams taking place in exam halls) but making them open book, so students can focus on knowledge application rather than memory testing.

Employability

Problem: When it comes to applying for an industrial year, due to the competitiveness in employability, many students struggle to find a place of work. Then, they would either end up working in a place not suitable for them or resuming to studies as they couldn’t find a job at all.

Solution: I want to make sure all students looking for an industrial year can find work experience and bring the placement year employability rate to 100%. To do so, I will work with the Careers and Employability department to bring within the university workplaces for every course. So, if a student will not be able to find an external job, they would be guaranteed a workplace with the university, whether they are studying nursing, engineering or fine arts.

Mental health

Problem: When it comes to studies, people are usually given academic support from their Personal Academic Tutor (PAT). However, this scheme is implemented to only help students with the academic part of their studies, the mental side being often ignored. The only way a student can currently get mental health support from the university is through wellbeing, requiring the individual to own DSA to receive a specialist mentor.

Solution: To make the mental side of studying easier, I would like to implement a scheme known as Personal Mental Health Mentor (PMHM), which will follow a similar route as PAT, where each student will be paired with a wellbeing specialist mentor who will check on their university performance, how studies can affect mentally and how to overcome mental struggles.

Additionally, the students will have the chance to offer monthly feedback on both PAT and PMHM to ensure that they get the most out of both schemes.

No idea left behind

Problem: When it comes to elections, every person applying comes up with unique ideas. This can make voting difficult, but also, as soon as someone is elected, the other ideas go to waste and are forgotten about, ideas that could make a significant impact on university life.

Solution: If I get elected as VP Education, I would like to work with the other applicants to bring their ideas to reality. The students will initially receive a form to vote on which ideas they would like to see being implemented, meaning they will have complete control of the changes made.