The Academic Skills Team (AST) are a group of tutors who work with students to improve the skills they need to succeed in their studies at City, and so boost their performance.
We work with students from all courses and schools, from undergraduate to doctorate levels. As part of the Learning Enhancement and Development service, we also work with Departments and Schools to integrate our support into their curriculum.
‘Academic Skills’ covers a wide variety of activities and abilities. These include skills relating very strongly to students’ activities on their courses, such as how to understand assignment instructions and questions, how to decide on an appropriate structure for their assignment, how to reference and avoid academic misconduct problems such as plagiarism and critical thinking.
We also help students with the so-called ‘soft skills’ that they will need to operate in an academic context like City (and beyond). These cover areas like time management, how to work as part of a group, how to work at home and how to avoid procrastination.
The AST’s approach is developmental rather than remedial and so we look the student’s academic experiences, both before they started at City and on their course and how they can help to improve their work in future.
For example, we often look at the feedback students receive from their lecturers, explore what the comments mean and discuss how to improve the student’s existing study processes.
We provide this help in a variety of ways.
- Online 1-1 advice sessions. These are individual sessions with an Academic Skills tutor, to discuss anything to do with your studies. The sessions are free, open to all City students and confidential.
They start at 10:00 UK time and finish at 17:00, Monday to Friday. We’re available all year, apart from when the University is closed. Students can book a 1-1 advice session online via the Academic Skills page on the Student Hub.
Unfortunately, we can’t proofread your work, but we can help you to improve your own proofreading skills. If you feel you would benefit from English language support, there is more information about English for Academic purposes on the Student Hub EAP pages - Webinars and workshops. There is a programme of webinars and in-person workshops open to all students in Term 1 and Term 2 each year. See our Academic Skills page on the Student hub for details of topics, times and dates and how to book your place. The webinars are free and suitable for all students
- Moodle. The Academic Skills Moodle course has videos, quick study guides and lots of resources to help you work efficiently and effectively.
We offer both in-person and online tutorials and we can be found on the 3rd floor of the University Building. If you have booked an in-person appointment – please take a seat in the waiting area and your tutor will come and meet you.
If you have any questions please have a look at the Student Hub, or contact us by emailing [email protected].