Joy Moloney, Senior Education Development Fellow and Senior Tutor for the Faculty of Engineering & the Environment. J.M.L.Moloney@soton.ac.uk.  http://www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/about/staff/jmlm.page
I have various roles that have a focus on International students.
I work with Senior Tutor Xize Niu to co-deliver our Faculty’s annual Welcome Programme for International undergraduates, Erasmus students, Master’s students and PGRs. We provide a lunch, a “get to know your peers” session, tours of Faculty facilities and a panel question and answer session.
I also deliver Studying at University sessions as a part of the University International student Welcome Day. I use a Student Response System using zappers or via mobile devices. Questions include ones on adjusting to life in Southampton, for example “What has most surprised you about the UK?” There is consistency in student responses as the most popular responses to this question are always the friendliness of University staff, the weather and the cost of living! There are also various questions to help students to identify the academic skills they may need to develop.
The Faculty has a part-time Master’s Peer Advisor (an individual who has just completed their own Master’s) to be a point of contact and information for students across all our programmes and who organises social, cultural and academic support events. Faculty Master’s programmes have approximately 50% students who are International. The norm is that the Peer Advisor is also International and so understands the various challenges for new Master’s students.
The Faculty also has undergraduate Buddies who are available to help all first year students to settle into living and learning at Southampton. We have a Buddy coordinator who communicates with buddies on a regular basis and I support the coordinator, train the buddies and oversee the scheme. For 2016 – 2017 we have around 50 buddies, again many buddies are themselves International students and they are all extremely eager to help their peers. See http://www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/news/2015/10/09-engineering-and-environment-buddy-scheme.page for a news item about last year’s buddies.
Finally, as a different example of what I do, last year I worked with Sarah Winspear from Modern Languages to produce a resource for International students to help them to perfect the skills of sending and receiving emails. See http://www.edshare.soton.ac.uk/14805/1/story.html Please note this is available for staff and students at Southampton and is not available externally.
