For anyone the 1st day of a new job or starting a University course can be daunting. What if you are doing this in a new town or city, this goes from daunting to scary. How about coming from a different country? Speak a different language?
A whole new culture and experience awaits you! Your senses are 'through the roof', your usual creature comforts and habits don't apply here! This for all intents and purposes, may as well be the Moon or Mars that you have landed on?
Atmosphere, landscape, colours, smells everything is different and it's that way until you settle in! Big question is, how long will that take? What parts of your life, health and peace of mind will be effected in the meantime?
Today (7th February 2014) was induction day at Teesside University Business School for some of their courses. Most of the students who started University today instead of the usual September/October intake is because they are 'top-up' students who are continuing their education from their previous course, from wherever on the planet they previously studied and 'top-up' to gain a degree or to a masters degree at Teesside University.
Kamran Tanveer, is one of those students embarking on the final year of the BA (hons) Applied Accounting & Finance Degree at TUBS (Teesside University Business School). Kamran is from Pakistan and has not previously been to the North East of England let alone Teesside. During a brief discussion with him it's apparent he's keen to learn and get on with his course, but he has not much knowledge about how to find his way around the campus or how to find his way around the surrounding local area. Something he and his new colleagues are clearly daunted by!
 |
| Kamran Tanveer: Induction Day using skignz! |
As part of their orientation and induction for new students TUBS engaged with skignz to produce a 'treasure/scavenger hunt' using the skignz technology to take the students on a hunt around the campus and surrounding town centre to help them familiarise themselves with their brand new surroundings.
Each student download skignz onto their smart phone or mobile device, then they were asked to go out onto the campus and use skignz to find the first clue, which when they found it, not only gave them some important information on that specific location, but also gave them the clue to the next location.
To prove they had visited each location the students had to take a 'selfie photo' in front of the venue and pick up something (something physical, menu, what's on leaflet, etc..) from each specific location. Only by accessing each skignz at each location would they know what they had to get from each venue.
Kamran said: "skignz was really easy to use, helpful with information and that you can zoom in and out of clues, even swipe away content to see other skignz behind them. The whole experience really helped me not only find places that I will need to go to such as supermarkets and clothes shops; but also places I would like to go to such as the Cinema, Art Gallery and the Main Library.
skignz is informative, helpful and I will certainly be telling all of my friends about it! Even when I return home to Pakistan, it will be really useful in many ways back there."
Kiersten Avery, Assistant Dean, TUBS said: "We wanted to not only help the students settle in, find their way around campus, but also provide them with a whole new interactive experience. skignz provides us with something that no other University has and we are working with them to utilise the skignz technology in many different ways for the benefit of our students.
 |
| Kiersten Avery: Assistant Dean, TUBS |
The feedback so far has been incredible and gives us a whole different way in which to interact and communicate with our students. Due to this successful pilot of using the technology in this way, we aim to roll this out for all students for this years September induction and orientation events".
In 2014 many of the largest brands in the world are focusing on how they can improve user/consumer/customer experience rather than just try to advertise at them and push their products on to them.
Teesside University are leading the way by using skignz technology to improve the whole student experience on campus in a way that is helpful, insightful, interesting and provides the students with something they can take out into the real world and use, alongside their studies and learning.
skignz was co-founded by two local Middlesbrough guys Gary Baker and Si Brown, the latter an Alumni of Teesside, who gained both his undergraduate and postgraduate Master Degree at Teesside University.
As part of the induction, Teesside are showing real life examples of how students have completed their course and apply that experiences and knowledge in the real world, this demonstrates to students about how important employability and gaining work experience is, alongside their studies and gaining a formal qualification at the University.
If you would like to learn about the courses on offer at TUBS please follow this link: Teesside University Business School
If you would like to learn a little more about how skignz can work on your University Campus(es) please take a look at this short film.
This film was actually developed and produced by varying members of the skignz team, ALL of which are ex-graduates of Teesside University, having completed an internship or placement with the company. They are now in graduate positions working on projects for some of the worlds most popular brands.
If you are interested in how skignz can help your University please either email us on info@skignz.com or call us on +44 (0) 845 058 0519.
