| The health of the student union is a very good litmus test for the culture of the university. Anyone looking to study at university in the UK should check out the student union and try to gauge how independent it is from the institution and whether they're actually active as a union or just an extension of the university's student experience department. Can you find out much about the history of the SU at the intitution? The names of previous people elected into officer positions? What sort of jobs do those people have now? Do you get a feeling like they might have used the officer roles to maneuver into those jobs rather than to actually advocate for students? (hint: SU Officers doing their jobs properly will be in conflict with faculty staff and see the worst of the institution, and therefore are not very likely to want to hang around after graduation) Are multiple officers taking credit for the same achievement (campaign, event, milestone)? Is there a good spread across demographics among the officers? Do they get training? What do they say about their training? What's going on on their social media? Does it feel like it's being used to market the university? Source: was an SU rep |