Hi, I’m Patrick. I am currently on a placement year working at a small Leicester based web development company.
I can wholeheartedly say that these last 3 years at DMU have been the best of my life. Therefore, I would like to help give you the same experience and help you make the most out of university, as well as help you learn from my mistakes.
With the above being said, over the last 3 years I have noted a few issues with how the course is laid out and would really like to work with students and staff to help improve the course. As well as this I would love to take feedback from current students about how they feel the course should be improved.
As your student representative I would do the following:
• Be a voice for students who have concerns, feedback, or any other queries for the staff or DMU in general.
• Be an advocate for mental health. DMU does a good job of providing a support network for mental health issues, however sometimes a familiar face is needed to help get the ball rolling in terms of seeking help.
• Campaign to replace some exams/phase tests with practical coursework. I feel this is important since, in my opinion, exam conditions are a fundamentally wrong metric for measuring student ability; especially on a practical engineering course.
• Consult with current and past placement students to improve the clarity of information for students on placement year relating to documents which need to be completed and hand in dates.
• Campaign for industry guest lectures specifically for Software Engineering and Computer Science, in the same fashion as the cyber security guest lectures. I think this would give students a better perspective on what they can expect when they enter industry.