Every year at about this time, everyone who works for a University in the UK suddenly become over the top about surveys – National Student Survey, Student Experience Survey, Postgraduate Taught Survey, Postgraduate Research Survey. The list is almost endless. Almost.

You get an endless stream of emails, your lecturers plug it at every opportunity and weird looking posters pop up all over the University bearing the infamous words ‘HAVE YOUR SAY’. It isn’t just unique to Swansea, it happens everywhere. In Bournemouth, the University there spent money sculpting a NSS sandcastle. It’s actually a little bit ridiculous.

So what’s up with all the hype? What actually happens to what you say?
The main reason why Universities accross the UK care so much about it is because they inform league tables. What you say will be used by newspapers to tell prospective students whether Swansea is good or not. Lots of people have different views about how right or wrong this is – but the fact this happens isn’t going anywhere.

To put it in plain and simple English - these surveys also define how the University make changes. They use it to decide how to spend your tuition fees – for example, lots of people said that they weren’t happy with learning resources last year so this year, approximately £3m was spent on improving the library. BOOM.

They can also change how the University works. For example, last year you said that you were broadly happy with your student experience at Swansea University. This year, the University used the comments you made about what you thought was good about the University to rollout good practice across the University. Tidy.

Everyone goes on about how much they love Swansea or have a tonne of ideas on how your department could do things better. Genuinely, put the kettle on, make a cup of tea and be honest about how you feel about your time at University.

Think of this as one way you can give something back for the AMAZING three / four years you’ve had here: http://www.thestudentsurvey.com/