You Said We Did

We seek and value the views of our student community. We listen to these and build them into the continual improvement of our programmes, processes and activities. Here are some of the ways we have responded to the views of our community of learners, gathered either via our Staff-Student Liaison Committees, or though annual student surveys.

Academic support

Preparing you for the Graduate Course Selection process

We have heard your SSLC feedback about Graduate Course Selection and we’ve introduced a series of pre-arrival webinars to guide offer holders through the process in the summer. These have helped offer holders prepare for their course selection early. The webinars are very popular and students have benefitted from the opportunities to ask us questions before the selection period begins.

Programme structure

We have reviewed the MSc programme surveys on teaching and learning experience extensively and as a result, we have now reformed our core course offerings for the MSc programmes. The new semi-core courses give more flexibility to students to study IR from different perspectives, and the new methodology course has been designed to tailor specifically to our students to study research design in the IR context.

The majority of our MSc IPE students have also been able to choose and get onto their preferred IPE courses as a result of better availability overall.

Additionally, student feedback from SSLCs has been fed directly into the UG and PGT Programme Review process, helping to shape discussions on curriculum design, programme structure and future development.

Assessment diversification and guidance

We have continued to review your evaluations of the assessment patterns and we have diversified the assessment formats at both undergraduate and postgraduate (taught) level. We now offer a range of different assessment types, including essays, coursework, policy memos, case studies, e-Exams, blog posts and presentations.

We have listened to undergraduate SSLC feedback and have spaced out BSc IR assessment deadlines, in addition to shifting the IR398 Dissertation submission deadline to ST Week 2. We will continue to act on undergraduate feedback and improve dissertation support, resources and guidance.

In response to student feedback, we have provided a clearer departmental AI policy and we will continue to review AI guidance at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level, to ensure students have a clearer understanding of where AI tools may and may not be used, and how this differs across individual courses.

Opportunities to engage with academic staff

The Department followed up on concerns raised through SSLCs regarding access to academic support. This led to a review of office hours and Academic Mentoring provision, which found that staff were meeting School requirements. The Department highlighted the importance of maintaining informal opportunities for students to engage with academic staff outside of scheduled teaching.

Community

Student Partnership Committees

At postgraduate (taught) level of study, we work closely with a committee of student partners. This initiative came from student requests for more community activities and all activities from the Student Partnership Committee are student-led. Last year, activities included ice skating, a Friendsgiving event and help planning the end of the year party.

We also added an additional departmental social event, as requested by students.

Student communications

We constantly review our student communications. Based on community feedback we have created MSc and BSc Whatsapp groups to share important information. As requested, we have also provided more advanced notice of all confirmed events and added these events to students’ StudentHub calendars. We continue to send weekly departmental and events newsletters.

Contact with alumni

We received feedback that our current students would like to hear from recent graduates about their experience of entering the job market with a degree from the Department of International Relations. We built on this, running additional networking events with recent graduates in conjunction with LSE Careers, as well as several departmental events with current students and alumni speakers.