Getting support

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• Levels of support
• Using support from lecturers and teaching staff
• Support services
• Set up your own support networks

For more advice on getting support, see also getting help.

Levels of support

The amount of support available from teaching staff will vary a great deal. Usually this is much less than people are used to from school or college. There may be more help available where programme numbers are small or where the work is based mostly in a studio or laboratory. However, in general, you are expected to take the lead in:

• identifying what you need
• looking for ways of solving problems
• finding out what information and support is available
• making use of available support

Using support from lecturers and teaching staff

Lecturers provide information and guidance in Handbooks, in their feedback on your assignments and in handouts. They expect you to consult this before coming to ask for additional help.

Lecturers may not work full time at the university. Some of these lecturers will not be available to give extra help, as they may work at other jobs when they are not teaching you.

Other lecturers will have only a small amount of time to offer to any one student. They will not be able to go through your work with you in the detail you may have received at college. In order to make best use of the short time they can offer you:

• work through the difficulty as far as you can rather than expecting help at different stages
• identify possible solutions and try these before seeing the tutor
• write a list of key questions to ask
• put these in order, with the most important first, in case you run out of time and do not get through the list
• take your proposed solutions with you so that it is clear to the lecturer what you are trying to do
• stick to the point when you see the tutor
• be on time: if you are late, you will have less time with the tutor
• tutors cannot usually run over the time allocated to you

Support services

Universities offer a range of support services. Find out what is available and make use of these if you need them. It is better to ask for help early on if you are experiencing difficulty. It is more difficult to find a good solution if you let a difficulty run on without seeking help. Most services are confidential. The Student Union usually has support or welfare officers that can offer advice.

Set up your own support networks

It is expected that students will develop their own support networks. There are innumerable ways of doing this. For example, you could set up:

Support groups - these may focus on study, or bring together students from particular backgrounds such as mature students, students with disabilities, students from different ethnic backgrounds, international students, students living in a particular region on distance learning programmes, etc.

Discussion groups to debate themes and issues that arise in relation to the subject.

Reading groups to discuss themes that arise from subject texts.

Action sets to offer mutual guidance on short term action plans.

Lecture groups - these go through lecture notes to discuss themes and identify gaps in notes.

For more advice please see Mature Student's Groups.

This content has been written by Stella Cottrell, author of The Study Skills Handbook