What's the point in a student rep?

What's the point in a student rep?

So this year I was appointed student rep a while a go, I thought this would be a good thing, something good to put on my CV while at the same time giving a voice to the students. Sounds great, right? Wrong!!

Firstly there is no point in student reps, when they're not really listened to in the first place. I bought up a good few issues at the meeting, that the notes reflected nothing but dismissal, even if the tutors did try and deny it, this is still what came across in the notes. Not just to me either. One other student actually said "the notes basically say, here are the issues and here is why you are wrong".

I feel as a student rep I should bring this to light, as I am here to represent the students. Yet it feels to me as though I am being made out to be doing this, purely to cause trouble. Yet I have been in so many situations where teachers have hated me, I know what hell it makes my life and I wouldn't want to do something that I know will get tutors to hate me if I didn't feel it necessary.

So I emailed my points across to said tutor and again was met with a list of reasons I was wrong. I then arranged an appointment to see the subject feild leader and the tutor that attended the meeting. I felt that this is something that couldn't be dropped as it seemed to have a negative impact on students who are currently studying, which I thought was unfair.

I got a letter from one of the students who felt that one point was unfair-this was about dyslexia and still having comments on your work about written expression, spelling and grammar, even though these should not be taken into account, basically this student was unhappy as it is frustrating to keep getting told your sentence structure isn't great, your spelling is poor, your grammar needs work blah blah blah, as no matter how much they try, they produce the same results. The fact is, you then start to try and change it, which is even more frustrating as you are then trying to do a lot more than you are capable of. Which can then hinder your work. It is not like students with dyslexia don't know that their work is not to the same standard as everyone else, yet having it pointed out very time you hand in work is like poking someone in on crutches and saying "you can't walk the same as everyone else" it is pointing out the obvious and totally pointless. I can really relate to this, as I have dyslexia and I know myself it is frustrating, however I also knew I couldn't bring it about as my issue, mainly because it was not my issue, it was bought up by someone else, I could just understand the viewpoint-so the letter basically said there was no point in leaving comments about grammar and the fact that comments were there, concerns her. This was discussed at length and at least an email was sent out to explain students with the yellow sticker were not being marked down for these things. Which clearly is not really resolving the problem as students with dyslexia are still having useless comments on their work that do them no good at all.

then we got onto another issue about a member of staff, and I was basically told I was lying about it. Why the hell I would lie about something like that I have no idea, especially as it wasn't an issue that was bought to me. This was an issue bought to another student rep, yet when I was talking about it with this student rep, someone else asked me if I was talking about this member of staff as relayed to me how they felt about it. So I then triple checked the facts with her, so I knew I was going in with the correct facts. Yet I got told "that seems very unusual as that is not the story I get, but I will email (member of staff).

I was also informed that if people have specific problems with the notes, they should go to the tutors and not come through me, as then they are getting things third hand. Well correct me if I am wrong, but surely a student rep is there, for the students to discuss issues with and then have that relayed to tutors. I do not understand what I am missing here. I tried to explain that some students do not feel confident enough to do so, so would rather go through me. However it honestly felt like I was being made out to be a liar and anyone that knows me, knows how much I hate liars. Why would anyone put themselves in a position of arguing with tutors purely for the fun of it? I mean this is going to have a knock on affect for me, as it will no doubt be relayed to other tutors that I tried to cause trouble, when in reality I did exactly what I was appointed to do, I gave a voice to the students!