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Make Your Mark With Maria

Hi, I’m Maria, and I’m running for Academic Experience Student Executive because I’m frustrated by the gap between the education students are promised and the experience many of us actually receive.

Students are investing significant time, effort, and money into their degrees, yet many feel overwhelmed by workload structures, frustrated by inconsistent modules, and uncertain about how their studies connect to future opportunities. I believe students deserve an academic experience that is structured, supportive, and genuinely prepares us for the future.

As a Joint Honours student, I understand how easy it can be to feel disconnected from your academic community. Sometimes it can feel like you belong to two departments but not fully to either. This has made me passionate about strengthening academic communities and improving how faculties support students.

As a School Representative, I’ve seen first-hand the issues students repeatedly raise: workload pressures, confusing module organisation, limited access to facilities, and uncertainty about career pathways. These concerns deserve real action.

My campaign focuses on three priorities:

Expanding career opportunities through networking events, alumni mentoring, and shadowing programmes.

Improving the academic experience by reforming Discovery modules, reviewing workload balance, and expanding academic support such as writing clinics and skills workshops.

Improving access to facilities by reviewing how academic spaces are used and pushing for extended access.

Students deserve an academic experience that matches the commitment they put into their education. If elected, I will work to ensure that Leeds delivers that. 

We pay over £9k a year, or even more as international students, only to fight for a better academic experience that arrives after we leave, whilst we get “Thank you for your feedback”.

We deserve to experience change during our time here, whilst we are still students. I am stepping up to focus entirely on us: the current students. My campaign is built on a balance of long-term structural fixes and immediate wins, ensuring that even if you are graduating this year, my plan works for you.

Bridge the gap between your degree and your career:

Formal curriculum changes take ages.

I will bridge the gap to the professional world by introducing micro-credentials: dynamic masterclasses led by industry experts that link your degree to industry without the bureaucracy of changing the whole curriculum.

Carrying official weight on your academic transcript, these will instantly upgrade your CV with the exact real-world skills you need to get hired today.

Boost graduate employability and Master's/PhD success rates:

I will campaign for a university-backed Professional Talent Platform to make your top academic work/project (of any kind) publicly searchable, providing a university-endorsed portfolio for your career or postgraduate applications.

I am not waiting for a fancy title to improve your academic experience. I am already working on delivering this promise, and you can submit your work for review today at

https://www.ProjectsAtLeeds.co.uk

Emergency Maintenance Fund:

Financial pressure is the single biggest barrier to our academic success right now.

To combat unpredictable living costs and sudden currency fluctuations for international students, I will establish a rapid-access Emergency Maintenance Fund.

Financed through dedicated charity events that I will host rather than slow bureaucratic channels, this guarantees an immediate safety net for any student in crisis, especially those with limited working rights, like our international peers.

Why me?

Well, I have real accomplishments in improving the Academic Experience as academic rep.

I am already working on making my promise real instead of waiting for a title.

I have hosted the biggest academic event of this year: the Leeds AI Week (leedsaiweek.co.uk), bridging the gap to the professional world, and I want to do more for every faculty.

As AI Society President, my experience running large-scale events proves I can successfully fundraise for the Emergency Maintenance Fund.

I am launching the first LUU Academic Award to encourage all Academic Societies to deliver more academic events.

I am not waiting for a title to start improving our university. But with your vote, I can work on a massive scale and impact everyone.

So vote for action today, not just promises for tomorrow. 

apartheid must go, vote for nico

im nico (he/him) and im a postgrad student studying postcolonial studies. im running to be your academic experience student exec.

having been involved with student politics and activism on leeds campus for over 2 years, i believe that the majority of students are pro-palestine, anti-racist, and believe in trans rights, yet we lack any real say on how our lives are shaped. the university increasingly prioritises profit over education, taking an extortionate amount of tuition fees from students while underpaying and overworking staff. the problems with teaching quality, contact hours, student support and marking speed lies with the university system itself, one that also funnels money and research into the war machine while denying refugee students their place on our campus. only by building student democracy from the bottom-up can we win better education for ourselves.

i am running on the equality and justice slate with AJ (union affairs and community), amyra (welfare and liberation), and issy (opportunities and development). the growing crises in society, from genocides and wars to the rise of the far right, mean we need a collective fight back against the system. we are students that believe in a free palestine, anti-racism, and trans rights, and we are committed to building a bottom-up student movement that can challenge the increasing attacks on our community.

student staff solidarity fighting for better education

students’ learning conditions are staff’s working conditions. the university is coming after staff’s job security, slashing modules, courses and fundings, replacing permanently employed staff members with short term contracts and AI. this translates to shorter contact hours, less support, and overall worse teaching quality for students, who pay an extortionate amount of tuition fees and get a rotten deal in return. i will increase communication channels between the student body and trade unions, in identifying common challenges and bolstering our fight for better education through collective actions between students and staff.

decolonise campus

the university’s investments in and partnerships with arms companies and israeli institutions implicate it in ongoing colonial violence of occupation, apartheid, and genocide. the moral responsibility lies with the university as an institution and not with individual students, and we deserve better industry and research partners than arms companies and the military. i will lobby to increase student oversight and representations on the university council’s ethics and values committee and all other relevant committees in upholding the university’s ethical duties to its own students and wider society.

refugee and migrant students welcome

our academic community is not complete without the participation of refugee and migrant students. despite the university’s status as a sanctuary university, it refuses to drop draconian restrictions on gazan students’ ability to enroll and travel, leaving them trapped under conditions of genocide. the rise of far right racism and xenophobia also requires us to make a strong commitment towards the diversity and inclusion that underpin our community. i will increase funding to and expand sanctuary scholarship programmes, and lobby the university to adopt a more flexible approach to enrolling students from conflict zones. 

Why I’m Standing

I’m Anushya, an MSc Management student at Leeds University Business School. I’m standing because I genuinely believe every student at Leeds deserves an academic experience that works for them. I’ve felt the same pressures many of you face - exam stress, cost of living, policies that aren’t always clear - and I know what needs to change because I live it every day.

My Experience as a Student

Being part of the Leeds student community showed me how powerful it is when students come together. Collaborating with people from all backgrounds and all over the world taught me that when students speak up, real change happens. That experience is what drives me to step up and do more.

What I Want to Change

I want to make academic support more accessible, clearer, and fairer for all Leeds students. That means better mental health and wellbeing support during exam season, more study spaces when you need them most, stronger financial assistance for those struggling, and a proper voice for international students navigating visa stress and cultural barriers. These are real problems and I have real fixes for them.

My Vision

With me in this role, your voice won’t just be heard - it will lead to action. I’ll show up to every meeting, publish accountability reports, and make sure your academic experience is treated as the priority it deserves to be. I’m not running for a title. I’m running to make sure every Leeds student is truly heard. 

Hi! I’m Annika, and I’m running to be your Academic Experience Student Executive!

For the past year, I’ve served as the PGT Faculty Officer for Leeds University Business School, last year as the UG Faculty Officer in the Faculty of Environment and previously as School Rep, so I have slowly made my way up the academic structure. In these roles, I work directly with programme leaders, school management and faculty committees to represent students and improve the academic experience.

That means gathering student concerns, bringing them into decision-making spaces, and pushing for practical changes. It’s also given me a clear understanding of how academic systems at Leeds actually work, and where they fall short for students.

Through this role, I consistently hear the same concerns: students feel confused about expectations, disconnected from career pathways, and unsure what support they should be receiving.

That’s why my campaign focuses on three priorities.

MAKE IT COUNT.

Students should graduate with more than just a degree title. Through my Faculty Officer role, I’ve seen how valuable employer talks, alumni insights and industry exposure are when they’re connected to modules. I want to push for careers to be integrated within degrees, alongside clearer guidance on visa pathways, the Graduate Route and sponsorship options, so students understand how their studies connect to their future.

MAKE IT CLEAR.

One of the most common issues raised by students is unclear expectations. As Faculty Officer, I regularly raise concerns about inconsistent marking criteria and vague feedback. I will advocate for clearer assessment guidance, access to real high-grade examples, and academic skills embedded within modules so students know how to succeed from the start.

MAKE IT FAIR.

Students’ experiences shouldn’t depend on luck, whether that’s the supervisor they receive or the timetable they’re given. I will push for clearer standards for academic support, more transparency around course expectations, and timetables that support student wellbeing rather than contribute to burnout.

My work in academic representation has already been recognised with the Student Academic Rep of the Year Award and Academic Representation Heroes Award, but more importantly, it has shown me how powerful student voices can be when they are taken into the right spaces.

Now I want to take that experience beyond individual faculties and improve the academic experience across the whole university.

So Don’t Panic-Ka, Vote Annika as your #1 for Academic Experience Exec

Hiya, I’m Sylvie Reed, a second-year philosophy student, but next year I could be your Academic Experience Student Executive.

This year I’ve been the Student Representative for my school, so not only am I aware of academic issues students face, but I have first hand experience of solving them and improving our university. Alongside this, I’ve balanced being the Academic Rep for Philosophy Society, the Welfare Sec for Ballet Society and of course being a University of Leeds Student, so it’s safe to say I’m good with a bit of admin and organisation.

As the Academic Experience Student Executive, I would work to:

Introduce paid Community Officers across all schools.

• Their role would be to organise school specific academic and social events to generate community – working in collaboration with School Reps and Academic Societies. Making friends on your courses can be tough, especially in large lectures where there’s little chance to socialise, but with Community Officers, we can create far more opportunities to meet people on our courses in relaxed settings. Not only that, but it produces more student jobs and is brilliant work experience for your future careers.

Get a better deal for Joint Honours students.

• Joint Honours students face many obstacles, including difficulty in finding people in their specific courses, a lack of communication between their parent schools and, unclarity about module selection. These issues can make JH students feel isolated, hinder their academic success and leave them in the dark about academic or employability events. To combat this, I want to introduce regular Joint Honours Forums for JH students to meet one another. I would also like to create a stricter policy that ensures JH students have equal access to both their parent schools and enforce better communication from staff about module options and restrictions for JH students.

Give a voice to non-western researchers and writers.

• New policy needs to be introduced to make non-western research/literature mandatory in every course. Furthermore, it would require that we no longer use the westernised versions of researchers’/writers’ names, and that when studying particular western thinkers, we acknowledge the bias’ their work may be based in.

Standardise the way feedback is given.

• Many students report inconsistency in the quality and style of feedback they receive from lecturer to lecturer. To improve upon this I will push for better training in marking. Crucially, I plan to ensure that feedback is given in line with each school’s marking criteria, so that it is easier for us to understand and compare to our previous feedback/work.

 Offer specialised support for academic societies.

As much as academic societies are a place for students to socialise, they are also a brilliant place to flourish academically. This can be through employability events, student newspapers, student conferences and talks from academics. I would like to improve committee training so it’s better suited to the needs of academic societies, including information on how to organise the aforementioned events.

If you’d like to hear more about my values and pledges, don’t hesitate to reach out to me on instagram at @sylviereed4academicexperience, or just come up to me on campus (I’ll be in the pink beret).