students found essex welcoming 

In total 98% of first year students found the University of Essex welcoming, +1% from last year and unchanged from 2022/23, representing a real endorsement for the collaborative welcome efforts of the University and Students’ Union.

Notably, this year Southend had the highest percentage of ‘Very Welcoming’ among all campuses (67.1%) which was driven by EBS and HSC.

Non UK students generally feel more welcomed than UK students with 99.4% answering ‘Very Welcoming’ or ‘Welcoming’ vs 97.7% of UK students.

opportunity to help students feel settled 

When asked  about how they have settled into life at University, the results have been very consistent year on year (83%-85%).

Whilst this year is +2% on last year, only a small increase and little change year on year indicates some room for improvement in helping new students settle into University life at Essex.

belonging falls slightly 

In total, 79% of students feel that they belong at the University of Essex (-2% from last year).  

Southend has increased +6% to 87%, the only campus to grow the percentage of students who feel that they belong this year.

Overall, UK students have been more inclined to answer ‘Agree’ (53%) than ‘Strongly Agree’ (27%) when asked this question, vs non UK students where we have seen a much more even split between ‘Agree’ (39%)  and ‘Strongly Agree.’ (39%).

pre arrival online information issue  

The 2024/25 results show a decrease in the percentage of students agreeing that information was easy to find online before they started, from 74% last year to 71%

Nearly 30% of students are therefore not able to find the information they need before they arrive.

Insights from this question have continued to point to this being an area for improvement and action across several years now.   

By campus, only 45% of students at Loughton agreed that information was easy to find online before they started, much lower than Colchester (71%) and Southend (80%).

navigation is a significant problem

The percentage of students in Colchester who agree that it has been easy to find their way around the University has decreased from 67% in 2023/24 to 59% this year. 

That’s almost half of our students, who don’t find it easy to find their way around our Colchester campus.

Increased Welcome signage should have improved the figure vs last year, therefore it’s reasonable to assume this decrease points to challenges with room numbering.  

The survey results show that poor on-campus navigation is an issue that is very much limited to the Colchester campus; 96% of respondents in Loughton and 95% in Southend agreed that it was easy to find their way around campus.

Elsewhere in this survey, ‘finding directions’ was raised as the worst thing about the first month at The University of Essex, further supporting a need for improvement in this area.

opportunity to improve support 

80% of students are aware of the support available if they are struggling with anything at University. This is unchanged from the last 2 years. 

1 in 5 students not being aware of support available suggests there is room for improvement in building awareness of the support provided by both the University and the SU.

static awareness of opportunities   

77% of students are aware of different opportunities (through the University and SU) to help them enjoy life outside of their studies, unchanged from last year and -1% from 2022/23

Notably, there was a 5% difference between awareness of opportunities to enjoy life outside of studies among Undergraduate (79%) and Postgraduate (74%), indicating further need to improve Postgraduate specific communication.

departmental inductions improve  

The percentage of students rating department induction talks and events positively (scoring either 4 or 5) has increased by 1% to 80% for 2024/25; a rise of 5% since 2022/23.

This increase reflects positively on the work that has taken place at a departmental level, including joint-working between the University and the Students’ Union, to deliver effective inductions and events for new students.

Opportunity to better prepare students 

The percentage of students that answered positively to this question (scoring 4 or 5) has increased by 4% to 57% in 2024/25.

A certain level of uncertainty is to be expected in starting University studies, however this could represent an opportunity for us to further improve the welcome experience by providing students with more support before they start their studies.

course confidence is fairly consistent 

In total 91% of respondents agreed that they are on the right course, unchanged from last year, and +1% from 2022/23

There is however a shift in confidence as those that strongly agreed that they are on the right course has declined over 3 years (54% in 2022/23,  52% in 2023/24 to 51% this year).

rise in students meeting on their course 

The percentage of respondents positively rating department-enabled opportunities to meet students on their course increased from 78% in 2022/23 to 81% in 2023/24 and now to 84% in 2024/25.

This increase highlights the success of the work that has taken place at a departmental level, through collaboration between the University and the Students’ Union.

Students from HSC and PPS departments answered most positively to this question; 93% of HSC students and 92% of PPS students responding with Successful/Very Successful.

opportunities to meet students needed 

63% of respondents positively rated opportunities to meet students not on their course, which represents no change from last year, after a small increase from 61% in 2022/23.

This is significantly lower than the success rate of meeting other students on their course, representing continued scope for the University and Students’ Union to work together in creating opportunities for new students to meet outside of classes

slow rise in making friends in first month 

The percentage of students agreeing that they made friends in their first month at university has had a slow increase, from 80% in 2022/23 to 82% this year, after a dip to 76% last year.

In Loughton, you are more likely to make friends in the first month, with the percentage of students agreeing they made friends in their first month being much higher, 94% this year.

students' union-led activities success 

Perhaps expectedly, most students made friends on their course (386), followed by in accommodation (206), reflecting the two likely highest areas of time spent.

Of significant interest is the total number of respondents that made friends through Students’ Union-led activities (305) which, when totalled, exceeds accommodation and comes closer to those met through their course. 

Explore our Tableau dashboard

Now that we've shared some of the headline findings from this survey we want to give you the chance to dig deeper and look at how these results compare across different demographics and between departments.

Thanks to our partnership with the amazing team in PDI (thank you Naomi, Stephen and Megan) you can explore a custom tableau dashboard for this survey here   

If you don’t have access to Tableau, please email poquery@essex.ac.uk