Dragon Interview: Student Leader – Covid, Rankings and the Student Experience

Published on: 16 Oct, 2020
Updated on: 19 Oct, 2020

The University of Surrey’s Students’ Union president, Lizzie Rodulson tells Hugh Coakley about the experiences and problems faced by students including dealing with Covid-19, how the university had fallen down some of the UK rankings and her role holding the university to account.

The Students’ Union president at the University of Surrey, Lizzie Rodulson.

Lizzie said that there were currently six cases of coronavirus on the campus with a further 11 cases off-campus.

This was not at the scale being experienced at some other universities, due partly, said Lizzie, to the work by the university and the Students’ Union to hold “covid secure fresher events”.

Lizzie said the university had “slipped down the ranking drastically” in the last few years, both in overall achievement and student satisfaction and the primary lesson for the university was to “listen to the students”.

Some courses such as business and nursing were doing well but in other areas, such as engineering, students did not feel they were getting value for the £9,250 yearly tuition fees they were paying with international students paying double that.

To hear the interview with Lizzie Rodulson, click on the image below…