Being part of the Bournemouth University (BU) community begins when you first apply to be a student, throughout your studies and even after you have graduated.

Embarking on my journey at BU, the sense of community began long before arriving as a student. From receiving your application, BU welcomes you into its community, sending emails about upcoming events. I had a campus tour and was invited to an orientation day before becoming a student at BU, which helped me when arriving as a first-year student.

For freshers, BU offers events facilitating integration, making new friends, and transitioning from home to halls, with ResLifeBU further enhancing your experience, offering social activities such as arts, yoga, cooking, murder mysteries, outings and skill-building creating a sense of instant belonging whilst contributing to your general well-being.

When starting your course, you can also find a community through group projects, collaborations with peers, and from various courses. For me, the courses in the Department of Media Production often take part in student projects, extracurriculars and department events, such as BFX Festival, AlumniFest and Festival of Media Production.

Additionally, being a Student Representative (Student Rep) or a Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) Leader gives you a community within your course and with students on other courses. You become more familiar with the course teaching team and engage with your course mates, as well as a wide range of activities like Buddying, Movie Nights, and other projects such as surveys or studies. As a PAL leader for first year students this brings you closer to newer students, and socialising with other leaders at events like the PAL awards or in the training events.

Joining a club or society is an excellent way of meeting likeminded people. Over my time at BU being part of the Dance Society and Nerve Media has been some of my best experiences as I spend so much time with people of similar interests.

As a Student Ambassador, you meet many interesting people, and it is a memorable and joyful experience. Everyone shares a common goal: to make the university experience memorable and inclusive.

However, the BU Community doesn’t stop there! BU have an Alumni Association so you can stay connected with the BU community, by keeping in touch with other alumnus, keeping up to date with news, and getting invites to events. Depending on your course you can have various members of alumni community delivering talks or are part of an alumni festival. Once you graduate, you will have access to the support from CareersBU!

SUBU’s Liberation Networks

BU has a community of diversity, which embrace inclusivity through equality, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and disabilities. The university identifies this with various cuisines and events, also the Student Union has campaigns dedicated to diversity.

The Bournemouth University community is a puzzle built through interactions, relationships, and shared experiences, in different ways, that extends to you from the start and beyond your BU journey.

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More about why to choose BU!