Maria Papageorgiou, Union Affairs and Communications officer

#Student Exec

Meet Your Union Affairs and Communications Officer

After being elected back in March, the new Exec team for 2022/23 are now in post. While they’re getting to grips with all things LUU over the summer, we chatted to them about their motivations for leading LUU, their top priorities for the year, and what they’d like to say to students this summer.

We sat down with the Union Affairs & Communications Officer, Maria Papageorgiou, to hear her thoughts. As Union Affairs & Communications Officer, Maria chairs the board of trustees and makes sure the Union always works in your interests, as well as ensuring the charity’s money is spent in the right areas. Here’s what Maria had to tell us about her plans for the upcoming year.

View your other Exec Officers and their contact details here

Tell us a little bit about yourself!

Hey, I’m Maria, and I’m your new Union Affairs and Communications Officer. I am an international student from Cyprus, and I’ve just finished my second year in Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence. I will be taking a year out to carry out my responsibilities as an officer, making sure we all love our time in Leeds! I am not a big fan of this question as most of my hobbies are not particularly intriguing- I can’t sing, can’t dance and I am terrible at sport! In my free time, I enjoy reading books and going out with friends. As you can probably guess from my degree, I love to code, so I sometimes find myself playing around with data or overthinking programming problems.

Why did you want to join the Exec?

One of the main reasons I wanted to join is the opportunity to drive change and improvements. The years we spend at Uni are the most formative years of our lives, and rightfully, students expect a high quality of education and a positive life experience. Given the opportunity to sit on committees and meet with senior people, I want to ensure that student concerns and needs are heard so that these expectations are met.

Having said that, meeting these expectations is the Union’s main purpose. Working different shifts around the building and getting support from Help and Support and Joblink, I found that the Union does so many great things for students. Unfortunately, not enough students know about all the opportunities for support from LUU, so can’t take advantage of them. A big part of the change I want to bring is precisely this – to engage more and more students and improve awareness of what LUU does. I’ve also seen some areas that need improvement, which motivated me to run and helped me shape the points on my manifesto.

What are your priorities for the year ahead?

To make LUU a place for everyone with support desks around campus, improved communications, and better medical services.

What are you most looking forward to in your role?

Seeing results – I cannot wait to see projects that I work on come to life. I’m personally very goal driven and won’t be satisfied unless I manage to achieve what I promised.

Is there a message you’d like to send to our students?

Always ask for help if you need it  – we’re here, as a Union and as an exec team, to help. You should never be ashamed to ask for help. Sometimes we can’t deal with things on our own, and that’s okay. The Union helped me find a part-time job in only a few days and advised me on the next steps to take when I was facing an issue with my school. Those are just a couple of examples of how the Union supports students.

 

Read more about the Student Exec and how they can support you here.