Student life

Mobile phones have a bad reputation within education, with the words “time wasters” and “distractions” being thrown around more often than a netball in a match. But what if mobile phones were proven to be helpful within education? I’ve found five mobile applications that have been godsends to me at university so far, and they help dispel the myth that mobile phone apps are useful only as procrastination tools.

The forced removal of international students in the UK accused of cheating on English language tests will be investigated by the Home Affairs Committee in a formal inquiry.

The National Union of Students welcomed the decision, which came after they submitted evidence to the committee on Monday outlining concerns with the Home Office’s response to cheating revelations.

University can be a big jump from high school, and for many it is an overwhelming change. The close-knit relationship students may have had with subject teachers at school; those many role models, who appeared to focus on your educational career alone, are replaced by a personal tutor who you might see once or twice in a semester unless you make the effort to seek them out yourself.

Whether it’s a demanding upcoming exam, the bachelor’s or master’s thesis that needs to be perfected, or applying to a university; these “little projects” are associated with factors influencing your future and therefore the pressure can lead to anxiety, frustration and sometimes sheer despair. In the end, most of the energy that could have been used for facing the hurdles gets put into destructive action, such as worrying and overthinking. So, what can be done about it?

Bill Aulet, managing director of the MIT Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship, says that entrepreneurship is fundamentally about having control over one’s destiny. The only way to control your destiny is to create it. A cliché, I know, but one that holds true, more so now than ever before. Our modern, global economy and our technological progress mean we are all inextricably interconnected, in the way that we live and in the problems we face.

Working with people from different countries and cultures can benefit students and researchers personally and professionally, by cultivating new perspectives and ideas.

Chemists and collaborators Dr David Michaelis, of Brigham Young University in the United States, and Dr Hiroyuki Miyamura, of the University of Tokyo in Japan, forged a fruitful partnership after meeting in 2010 through the Reaxys Prize Club: a select group of chemistry PhD students nominated for a prestigious prize.

I’m a bit late to the party for watching the 2014 documentary The Ivory Tower, on higher education, but the documentary itself is only becoming more and more relevant. As a fourth-year student getting ready for the transition from post-secondary education to the “real world”, it’s no news for me to hear about rising tuition costs or the pre-graduation anxiety felt over whether what we’ve learned during the academic grind will make us competitive in the job market.

What I’ve learned studying English: Choice is a difficult matter

At the beginning of every term, students settle back in to their classes or begin new modules, but depending on your course, which university you go to and which year you’re in, you will find yourself in these modules for quite different reasons. It might be compulsory because the staff deem the content “core” and “foundational”; perhaps you chose a specialist option or an elective purely because the topic fascinates you.

Claim a free copy of the full data set in the Student Experience Survey 2016 digital supplement

The best universities in the UK for student experience have been revealed, according to a Times Higher Education survey of current students.

Loughborough University in the East Midlands tops the list, up one place from second position last year.

View the full results of the Student Experience Survey 2016

Shift in sixth-former attitudes

I was reminded recently of the famous Labour pre-election broadcast of 1987. With a backcloth of coastal landscapes, a soaring seagull and a rambling pair of Kinnocks, to the rousing strains of Beethoven’s 9th, the then leader of the party reflected in his voice-over on how he had been the first Kinnock “in a thousand generations” to get the opportunity to go to university.