In the start of my term, one of my main priority was to achieve 100% academic societies because of its importance of creating communities for the cohorts. I knew the importance of having an Academic Society available for the students.

Academic Societies create and develop communities at City in which every student feels they belong, feel supported and feels respected. Those involved in Academic Societies have the opportunity to develop crucial skills required for their future employability, enhance their personal development from learning how to manage teams, planning and delivering activities to networking with external organisations. Extensive Research undertaken by the IFF on behalf of the Department for Educations highlights; “There is a link between engaged in extracurricular activities and subsequent graduate level employment”

City’s Students’ Union KPI (Key Performance Indicator) for number of Academic Societies is; 2017 – 2018 45%, 2018-2019 60%, 2019-2020 75%. But we have exceeded the expectation and achieved 100% Academic Societies in 2017-2018.   

An overview of current Academic Societies by School

Below is an overview of current academic societies we have in each school:

I am currently working with the Schools and the departments to better support our Academic Societies, I will lobby the Schools to have a dedicated Academic lead who will provide support to the Society; i.e. academic projects, revision sessions, financial and marketing support.

The number of overall societies have increased to 120, from Academic societies to Faith, Cultural, Political and Special Interest societies with an increased number of students’ engagement with the societies from 1,900 official societies’ members in 2017 to over 3,000 official members in 2018. 

 Zulkaif Riaz – Vice President Activities & Development