Find out why it’s important to attend university and the benefits of enaging fully with your academic studies.
Success in your studies
University is a community and we all benefit from engaging as fully as possible. It is a place to learn and grow, to meet others, to develop your skills, and prepare for your next steps in life. Attending and engaging with your studies is a crucial part of this.We see a link between attendance and success in your degree, both in completing it and in the grades that students tend to achieve.
Our values
We believe that community and engagement are beneficial to a high-quality learning experience. We learn better when we work together.
There are a few values that shape what we do.
- Academic success comes from building relationships and actively collaborating in our community
We learn better when we learn together. Learning does not happen best when we are passive recipients of information. Learning happens best when we participate actively in our education, exchanging thoughts and ideas with other people, including those who may hold views that are different from, or even challenge our own.
This is what it means to be part of a learning community. This is what helps us challenge ourselves, experiment with new ideas and grow. Your contribution is an important part of that.
- Subject knowledge comes from building relationships and actively collaborating in our community
When you learn as part of our stimulating community, pursuing the interests that brought you to Sussex in the first place, you can get the most from your course by exchanging ideas with people with different backgrounds, interests, perspectives and lived experiences.
Together you can develop your subject knowledge by sharing perspectives on your field and learning how to critically question and challenge established knowledge.
- Employability skills come from building relationships and actively collaborating in our community
When you learn as part of our diverse and inclusive community, your personal growth means that you acquire numerous skills that prepare you for the workplace.
These include communication skills, the importance of routine, teamwork, problem-solving, intercultural competence, respecting different views and the importance of open dialogue, and building the groundwork for an extensive professional network.
- Wellbeing is improved by building relationships and actively collaborating in our community
We recognise that members of our community learn differently and have different challenges to face. Many of our students are balancing multiple priorities alongside their education, including mental and physical health conditions, work commitments and financial challenges, caring responsibilities and commuting.
As part of our commitment to inclusion, we offer a range of opportunities for supporting your learning, including recorded lectures, but these are designed to complement your in-person experience, not to replace it.
By being part of our community, you are supported in overcoming barriers to get the very best out of your education and to enable the most rewarding employment and career prospects.
Sara, Elena and Tavian discuss succeeding as a student
- Video transcript
Sara: I think the best thing is the community. Everyone is very supportive. People really want you to succeed and you get so much help that you never feel like you’re alone. Because if you’re just doing independent study, which you do a lot of that in university, it can be quite lonely. But then we have so many people that are around you, not just peers, but teachers, mentors, reps. We have so much support that you never truly feel like you’re just drowning in work and you’re completely alone.
Elena: The first few weeks of university were the most challenging because it’s a different study method. You need to acquire a different study method. It’s quite different from high school or sixth form. So what I did was just asked for help. I asked other, third-year students or second-year students, more experienced students, what they would do and what would help them with their study methods. But yeah, what I think they were the most challenging – also because you have to start adapting to university life, adapting to living alone. So studying might not be your first priority in those first few weeks. So I think it was very challenging. But slowly you get there - you find your study method at the end.
Tavian: I think I probably did the most work in the first few weeks because, you know, you don’t know what’s expected of you. So you put in a lot of work. I know for me, I did pretty much all my readings, made sure I was at every lecture, every seminar, taking notes. I actually think it’s funny how in first year I might have done the most work. But yeah, definitely in those first few weeks I was really like, ’Oh, got to get my work done, got to get on top of everything’. So yeah, I wouldn’t say I was stressed, but I was definitely eager to make sure that I was getting as much out of those first couple of weeks as possible.
Our principles
We follow these principles to support students and researchers to succeed in the world.
- Monitoring attendance and engagement is key to supporting student and researcher wellbeing, by helping to identify people who are struggling and provide early support where needed.
- Attendance and engagement with teaching and research-related activities are important for everyone to progress and reach their full potential, while recognising this will be different for each person.
- Attendance and engagement with teaching and research are essential to a high-quality and fulfilling experience for everyone.
- Students and postgraduate researchers participate actively in their own success and the success of others by being part of a learning community, fostered through high levels of attendance and effective engagement. In turn, they will be supported by our staff, policies, processes and services to reach their potential.
- Our approach to attendance and engagement is guided by kindness, fairness, and consistency.
- Attendance processes and communication should be simple, transparent and consistent, for everyone's understanding and to ensure efficiency.
The principles are written out in full in our policy below.
Our policy
As well as values and principles, we have rules and regulations because we are an academic institution.
The principles above underpin our Attendance, Absence and Engagement Policy [PDF 279KB].