► NUS

Welcome from the President of NUS Scotland

Welcome to Abertay!

Regardless of whether you’re studying full-time or part-time, if you’ve come from overseas or just down the road, straight from school or returning to education, you now have the opportunity to have some of the best experiences of your life while making some incredible friends along the way.

But by no means will it be easy. Being a student can be just as stressful as it is rewarding. Academic, financial and personal pressures can add up and make life difficult. That’s where Abertay Students’ Association comes in. 

As a student at Abertay, you are automatically a member of the Abertay Students’ Association, which exists to change students’ lives by:

· Campaigning to end student hardship, so that access to education is based on ability to learn, not the ability to pay.

· Working to improve learning and teaching, so that students receive a high quality learning experience.

· Offering advice and support, so you always have a peer to turn to when times are tough.

· Organising events and activities, so that you develop transferable skills outside the classroom, which are just as important to employers as those you get in the classroom. 

And you are part of an even bigger collective of all 500,000 students across Scotland. Your national union - NUS.

NUS Scotland exists to promote, defend and extend your rights as a student, and support Abertay Students’ Association to be as strong and as active as it can be. 

We have a tough year ahead. We want to make sure that the money government has to spend goes into our pockets now, while we’re studying - not after we graduate. We want to make sure support for student parents and further education students is a right, and not a postcode lottery. We want to fight any increase in top-up fees south of the border, which would end up hitting Scottish students hard. And even then, we have so much more we want to achieve.

In the past year, our campaigns have won benefits for all kinds of students in Scotland.

· The poorest mature students now have an extra £1,200 and a new independent students bursary.

· The poorest young students have an extra £620 through loans and grants.

· We've stopped landlords being able to rip you off when you move out through the introduction of a tenancy deposit scheme.

· We won an extra £2m for student parents with a commitment to go much further.

You are now part of those wins because you are NUS Scotland.

Of course, we can’t deliver all of this as individuals. Get in touch with your students’ association or myself to get involved in our work. 

Whether you’re passionate about education, equality, student welfare or the environment, you have a powerful role to play, and NUS is here to make sure the old cliché that the whole is stronger than the sum of its part remains true.

Enjoy your time at Abertay. Get involved and remember that you are now part of a union - that means there will always be someone there to stand up for you, and always someone for you to stand up with.

Liam Burns

NUS Scotland President