Hello Everyone,

I am Cavya Antony, currently pursuing MSC Public Health and I am running for the President position in this year’s Student Union Elections.

Purpose

I arrived in the UK from India in Jan 2020, and as an international student, I have first-hand witnessed the struggles and problems faced by international students while balancing university curriculum, assignments, and part-time work.

The anxiety level among university students has always been reported as high and it has exponentially increased post-pandemic. COVID-19 has taken a centre stage in everything we do in our daily life and last year all of us had our individual challenges in coming to terms with the pandemic.

This has affected the university students in coping with the additional burdens of virtual learning, deadlines for finishing assignments, not being able to meet their friends and faculty members, lack of campus experience, having financial burden, maintaining their mental wellbeing, dealing with stress and loneliness. As any other student who dreams big and wants to pursue a high quality of education from an esteemed university, I had hopes of getting the campus exposure which an international university like ours would have been able to provide minus the pandemic situation. Now the greatest challenge and question we all have is - How to make the best out of the pandemic situation we face?

About Me

I have always found my ability to stand up for others, being empathetic towards others has helped me in attaining various positions during my school life as a student leader and in my under-graduate university as an inter-university representative. Those positions in my formative years helped me grow as a person and how it helped me in developing the leadership skills I have now.

Today as I stand for SU elections, I am just a girl who dares to dream high and believes that with the right amount of help and support to each student, they will be able to maximize their potential.

My Plan

1. To make our students aware of the resources available from the university and to maximize their participation in the SU.

A lot of students and freshers are totally unaware of the already existing events and mental awareness programs as a result they feel uncertain and are at a loss of who to approach.

1. I aim to create mediums where students can interact with ALUMNI’s in their respective fields as a way of encouraging students.
2. To have regular discussions with students.

Our student union is a representation of many students who comes from all around the world and it works to make the student experience better with each year. Everybody faces different hardships while studying at university. Keeping in mind, the current lockdown situation and of the future, I would like to conduct regular meetings with groups of students in different breakout groups and allowing a channel for students from different educational backgrounds to come and have healthy discussions about the current challenges they face.

1. To consider the voice of the minority population in our university with utmost zeal. Maximizing the job vacancies for students in partnership with the SU and other local communities, encourage the students to participate to their fullest.
2. To make a way in understanding the difficulties faced by our academic faculty staff and offer support in bridging the problems faced by them due to the current situation.

I hope you all will support me in this journey of elections and together we will work on our behalf.

Thank you,

Cavya Antony