Reference Groups

What are the reference groups? 

To establish a well working student democracy at the SciTech faculty, it's really important to hear what the student has to say. This is working well att most of the undergraduate programs where the students are well represented in both student- and program councils, but has been harder to manage at the international master programs. 

To improve this, UTN has started reference groups at the international master programs. These are meant to function as a student council where the students should be able to give their opinions and make sure their education keep high quality. 

Today there are three reference groups started, all of them at the Department of Information Technology, but with the hope that soon all master programs will have their own reference group. 

If you have got any questions about the reference groups, or if you are interested in joining, please contact Head of International Affairs at int@utn.se.

Latest news from the reference group

The reference group had their first meeting for the semester last week. Some of the things that were discussed were course syllabuses and more activities and integration with Swedish students.

Course Syllabuses

An important thing that was discussed was that some course syllabuses aren't translated into English. This makes it hard for the students to choose the courses they are interested in since they don't know what the courses are about. Me and Martin, Head of Educational Affairs, promised to take a look at it and make sure that the syllabuses would be translated.

Information

Something that needs to be improved is the amount of information that is passed on to the international students. This was something that the reference group all agreed on. To improve the information to the international students, UTN and I should get better on posting international news on the homepage. We should also show the progress that we make with international issues on for example the homepage.

Activities

It is hard for international students to attend on different activities organized. This is partly because international students know little of what activities there are. To help international students to know what activities that are organized, Head of International Affairs started an activity calendar on the home page that will be updated with more activities as we go.

Integration with Swedish students

The reference group all agreed on that they wanted more interaction together with Swedish students. To improve this I should get better on posting activities in for example the newsletter and on the homepage. I am also working on re-starting the organization Cambius who organizes different events with both international and Swedish students.