Being a student comes with many opportunities, which can make it difficult to live life on a shoe-string. We’ve compiled some of our top tips to help you save money.

Budget during the first week of term

Making a budget early on will prevent you from blowing your entire savings in just a few weeks. It’s easy to get complacent especially when your student loan comes in so make sure you plan carefully!

If in doubt, download a free app! There are loads of budgeting apps but The Telegraph have helpfully compiled a list of a few good ones.… Read the rest

Cycling has become an increasingly popular way of getting across campus. It’s free, good exercise and you’re looking after the environment at the same time! To help you out and encourage you to keep on cycling safely, Road Cycling Club (SURC) has been busy raising over £8,000 to fund public bike maintenance stands for you to use across the University.

The stands are set to be installed at Highfield and Boldrewood campuses, to give the public free access to bike maintenance tools and a tyre pump. The University’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) already has bike maintenance stands located across the … Read the rest

This week we caught up with Linda Baines, a postgraduate mature student studying a PhD at the Business School. We asked her about life as a mature student who studies from afar. Grab a cuppa and read Linda’s story here…

I’m a part-time self-funded PhD student at Southampton Business School and I live some 70 miles away from campus.  I started my PhD in September 2011 when I was still working full-time.  I caught the “research itch” when I was undertaking my MSc and I realised that if I wanted to achieve a life-time ambition, it was now or never.  … Read the rest

As some of you may now be aware, this year your Students’ Union is embarking on a significant review of some of its key areas. The project, which will be known as ‘Union Upgrade’, will include a review of the following:

• SUSU Brand
• Democracy
• Volunteering
• Student Communities (including International review, Halls Committee review and WSA review)

We are run by students, for students, but we want to go that step further and ensure that every single one of you is involved in how we are run.

Therefore, the Union Upgrade is taking place in line with our Vision 2020, … Read the rest

Last night saw the Students’ Union’s Halloween extravaganza with events being held in Southampton and Winchester to celebrate the festive occasion.

Students decorated pumpkins at the Pimp your Pumpkin event in the WSA Cafe yesterday evening. There was a good variety of designs, including a Minion pumpkin and even a Leprachaun design, plus much more.

The winning design was created by Josh Samways, who won a voucher to the WSA Art shop to spend on materials.

Students were given free Halloween-themed refreshments as they took part in games, including Pin the Nose on the Witch, a spooky twist on … Read the rest

1 in 4 people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year.

Look out for the SU elephant, affectionately known as Trunky, which will be in a different part of the SU every month to raise awareness of mental health as part of the ‘Elephant in the Room’ campaign.

The idea is reduce the stigma surrounding talking about mental health problems. If you spot the elephant, send us a picture via our Twitter @yoursusu or Instagram @sususnaps with #TimeToTalk

So how can we help?
We have a range of different support available to help … Read the rest

In order to make the work of the Students’ Union more transparent to students, your Full-Time Sabbatical Officers will be taking over the Students’ Union Snapchat account tomorrow.

Students often don’t see the work that the Officers do day-to-day to improve student life until now!

Expect to see an insight into Officers’ working day starting tomorrow with your SU President, Ben Franklin, who will be posting video updates onto the social networking app.

Add us at: YourSUSU for updates.

… Read the rest

The Students’ Union is full of weird and fun facts that you may have never known about…until now!

• Let’s start with one of our favourites…we have our own cat called Susu!

Susu is a stray cat who has adopted the Students’ Union at Highfield as her home – you can often see her chilling on the sofas by The Cube being cuddled by students.

• In preparation for Freshers’, we ordered over 7,000 pot noodles to give away to this year’s intake! 

True story – don’t say we don’t spoil you.

• In last year’s Union elections, Private Rented are the JCR