Wednesday 24-05-2023 - 10:00

Hiya everyone, Liv here!  

As a part of mental health awareness week and to aid healthy study sessions, we organised a week of drop in events for our wonderful students to attend! We had endless free snacks, bubbles and of course, therapy dogs!  

 

Monday 15th May 

Monday was very exciting for a lot of us at Abertay as BBC Radio 1 visited to kick off their big weekend leadup with the LifeHacks panel. As student president, I was asked to be a part of the panel to discuss how not feeling like you ‘fit in’ can affect your mental health and how to overcome it! 

The panel comprised of BBC Radio 1 Life Hacks host Katie Thistleton, the poet Gray Crosbie, the disability historian Jessica Secmezsoy-Urquhart and the Drag Queen Miss Peaches and of course, myself as student president of Abertay!   

During the panel, we discussed how not feeling like you fit in can really affect your mental health, this was a subject very close to my heart as growing up I never felt like I ever fit in until I left school and attended college. We discussed everything from how to find ‘your tribe’ of friends to our experiences with bullying growing up.  

The biggest takeaway I got from the week was how wonderful it was to see so many other people that at some point in their life also felt alienated or unable to make friends and even moreso how much of an improvement finding those friends have made on their mental health.  

Know that as a student association, our priority is the students at Abertay. This is shown through our societies, our events and the support we offer to those that need it. If you ever feel alone, alienated or just a bit down in the dumps, we are here to help guide you to a society of welcoming students with similar interests or to hold events to gather other students that feel similar and help break those mental barriers to friendships we so often have. Remember, if you have an idea or need our support, we are a visit, email or teams message away! <3  

Tuesday 16th May 

This was my favourite event of the week to run, mainly because Lauryn and I got to spend hours playing with bubbles and outdoor games alongside students. 

We had our big purple tent set up on the library plaza on a wonderfully sunny day for students to come outside during their study breaks for 5 or 10 minutes of outdoor fun! We had tables full to the brim with snacks, the plaza ground full of chalk drawings and messages from students, bubble gun galore, outdoor games and of course, music  to keep the vibe up.  

It was so wonderful to see so many students come and have a few minutes of fun with the bubble guns or outdoor games and we all know how much a chocolate muffin can improve your day, especially if its free! We will definitely be using the tent more over the next year so don’t be shy, come and see what freebees we have on offer!  

 

Wednesday 17th May 

Wednesday was officially Therapets day! This was definitely the event students were looking forward to the most!  

We were blessed to be visited by 6 different doggies who are all trained to be friendly and cuddly! We had Luka, the fluffiest boy of them all, Ruby who was just adorable, Penny the cuddly, Wilma the sleepy pup, Odie the handsome to name a few! While tickets were limited for this event, those who managed to grab one had 10 minutes of cuddle/play time with the dogs. Everyone that attended has a wonderful time, this will definitely be something I will organise again next year!  

  

Thursday and Friday 18th/19th May 

To round off wellbeing week, we once again set up our swapshop which had free clothes set up all over the event space for students to take for free! This Is always a big hit with students as they can donate their old clothes to fellow students and swap them for something they like! Our swapshop did bring up some interesting conversations about summer upcycling workshops that students would be interested to attend to learn about adapting old clothes into something new through sewing, screen printing and more! Keep an eye on your emails for more information about our summer events!  

In addition to the swapshop, we also had a bunch of takeaway craft kits! From cross stitch kits to suncatcher painting to crochet, we had it all available to stay and craft with us for a study break or take with you for a home starter kit! It was so fantastic to see every kit be taken or crafted and we would love to see what you made if you wish to tag us in pictures! We had a lot of requests for some summer crafternoons to help you guys learn how to crochet and I am happy to say that we are exploring this with our societies! Let us know what you wish to craft!  

We also had a bunch of snacks left over from the week that we ended up popping into the library on Friday afternoon! We hope you enjoyed some nice snacks as we all know food tastes even better when its free!  

Overall, wellbeing week was wonderful for us and for the students that attended. I hope you all had fun with us last week and we hope to bring you more events like this over the summer and of course, next year when I return as president!  

Thank you for another wonderful week of events,  

✨ Liv ✨