Student support
Whether you are heading off to university straight from school or college, or returning to education as a mature student, we want to ensure your experience is positive from the outset. At St George’s University of London, you’ll be welcomed by a multicultural student and staff body of different ages, ethnicities, nationalities and backgrounds, all with one thing in common – an interest in healthcare, science and medicine.
Students frequently tell us they greatly appreciate the diversity of our student and staff body, as well as the patients who access healthcare services in the borough of Tooting.
We offer a full range of academic support and student services across all institutes, departments and faculties, some of which are listed below. We take pride in offering a transformative educational experience underpinned by cooperation and collaboration between staff and students with lots of opportunities to become an official ‘student voice’ as a student representative on committees or taking part in assessment and feedback development. Our innovative Student-Staff Partnership Grants (SSPGs), for example, provide funding for small projects led jointly by students and staff. One of our students was part of a project to improve assessment and enhance feedback, which led to additional individual feedback after mock exams and the launch of a new process of self-appraisal by students themselves. We also have an active radiography student community and with support from second-year students have established a buddy scheme for first years.
Personal academic tutor
On arrival, you will be allocated a personal tutor – someone with whom you can have regular contact, who you ask questions and discuss problems with, both academic and personal. The main purpose of a personal tutor is to monitor your progress, pick up and help you resolve any problems, whether academic or welfare related. Even if they don’t have the answer, they will point you in the right direction towards the best people to deal with specific problems.
Induction programme
Within your first week at St George’s university of London, you’ll take part in an induction programme to help with your orientation and introduce you to various study skills, including interprofessional learning and use of the Anatomy suite. Additional sessions provide advice and guidance about the Registry, Students’ Union, personal tutor system, safety, occupational health and sexual health awareness.
Named radiographer / practice educator in each department
Each department has a practice educator or clinical liaison tutor who manages the day-to-day clinical education placement. These clinical colleagues are committed to student education in the departments and have regular contact with academic staff.
Academic staff support
You’ll have access to your lecturers, usually by arrangement via email.
Placement support
Each site has a dedicated clinical education team with a practice educator or clinical liaison tutor. They work in collaboration with the academic staff to ensure you get the best clinical experience and achieve your clinical assessments. Placements are allocated by the academic clinical lead, considering personal circumstances to ensure the best experience for each student.
Mums and Dads scheme
‘Mums and dads’ is a buddy scheme organised by the Students’ Union. Every fresher (first year student) has the choice of being assigned a ‘parent’ from the year above in their respective course. The returning student then acts as a ‘go to’ for advice about courses and university life, providing an additional support system during your first year, both academically and socially. They have been in your position and know the struggles of starting university; they also know all of the best pubs, clubs, restaurants, gyms and will help introduce you to your new St George’s family.
Student Life Centre
Our Student Centre team can help you with every aspect of student life: finances, accommodation, exams and assessment, academic procedures, admissions, international queries, disability and wellbeing, even finding your way around – whatever it takes to make you feel at home. Each course has a designated contact within the student centre to link to and your personal tutor can signpost you to relevant support, including a confidential counselling service.
Careers service
Our careers service works to support current students and recent graduates to find and maintain the career of their dreams. We work with careers tutors from each course area to ensure that careers activities specific to your programmes and future profession come to you. Where possible, we also host general and subject-specific careers fairs, which provide a great opportunity to meet and network with employers. Our annual radiography careers fair is one of the biggest radiography-related career events in the South of England. Our third fair, held in March 2020, proved to be the biggest yet and was attended by over 80 radiography students, 25 NHS Trusts and a host of other private organisations from the fields of both therapeutic and diagnostic radiography.