Engineering and the Environment's buddies are here to help

First year students from Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton have an additional helping hand again this year with a team of experienced undergraduate students, who are there to support them with the transition to academic life and living in Southampton.

Engineering and the Environment's buddy scheme has more than 60 undergraduate students who have volunteered to help first year students in their transition to the new academic environment. As experienced students, the buddies know the difficulties of settling into a very different environment and buddies have first-hand experience of the typical challenges that a first year student is likely to face. Buddies are keen to answer any question about academic or social life in Southampton.

Entering its fourth successful year, the buddy scheme has, in previous years received positive feedback from first year students, confirming that the buddies were helpful in providing responses to the questions that the students asked. First year students appreciated that they could benefit from their buddies previous experiences of their courses and considered this to be a key component of the scheme. Buddies provided ideas for time management, finding useful resources for courses and solutions to balance work and free time.

The photographs were taken during buddy training sessions in May and October 2015.