Student Council Holiday Greetings

The semester is coming to an end, the nights have grown long and many of you will be working long hours to put the finishing touches on your handins. Whether you’re searching for the last citations for your research, cramming to remember how a pointer works, or sweating in one of the labs making your prototype ready to shine, we hope you have time in your busy schedule to read our little holiday greeting.

This has been a very special semester for us. We took over in the Student Council this summer, with the task of supporting everyone coming back to campus after a long and winding lockdown. We wanted to give you the best possible return with a vibrant campus life, and because we have so many hard-working and motivated students from all over the different organisations, we’re happy to see that there’s been completely packed parties, new organisations with tons of members, a rejuvenated political engagement and many, many activities all throughout the semester where we could gather around again. 

We hope there’s been something for everyone, and if you feel like something was missing, shoot us an email. We have the funds and guidance to help you start something special, and maybe we can find someone who shares your interests and wants to help.

Now before we sign off from the Student Council work and go fully into exam mode, we’d like to give you a recap on what happened this semester. It was quite a bit actually!

A persistent issue we heard from many of you has been the requirement of registering for 30 ECTS every semester. This was hammered home when we received almost 300(!) responses about your experiences with these rules. Most of you wanted the system changed, either because full semesters took a toll on your health, reduced your ability to learn properly or interfered with the work life that you needed to sustain a normal student life. These responses are vital in finding a solution, so thank you for taking the time to write them!

Luckily both SAP, the Dean of Education and students agree that this is something that needs to change. We’ve working closely with some of our fellow students, Thomas Kaufmanas and Amalie Bagger, to address this system, and we’re aiming to have a solution ready to present in April. In the meantime we’ve been reimbursing any Doctor’s Notes required to deregister for a Fall 21 course, so remember to apply here if you’re eligible!

This one we’re extremely proud of. And so should you be. You obliterated the previous voting records, almost increasing it by 10 fold with an amazing 31% turnout. That’s the highest in the country! In addition, every spot in the collegial bodies has been filled with students eager to listen to your problems and improve your study environment. Check out all your representatives here.

We’re also happy to have brought management and students closer together, and we appreciate Pernille our Dean of Education, Georg our Director and Martin our Vice-Chancellor for appearing at the Info Breakfasts in Atrium to meet and discuss with all of you. Look forward to more coffee and cake in the next semester!

A very big thank you to all our engaged 1st class representatives as well, acting as the bridge we need to gather feedback from all of you and better understand what issues you are facing.

We’ve dealt with lots of other things as well. Recently we collaborated with FM to change every toilet to be gender-neutral to make the campus more inclusive.

Additionally we’ve spent a lot of effort streamlining the Student Activity Fund to make it as easy and fast as possible for you to get funding for your ideas. It has been extra valuable because so many of you spent your time planning activities for your fellow students this semester.

For now we just want to say a resounding thank you to all of you for being engaged in ITU, giving us your input and confiding in us with your issues, even when they might be hard to discuss.

It makes all the work worth it.