Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching

We’ve been running hackathons for the last six years now and, in that time we’ve covered many different topics and worked with hundreds of students. But what has become increasingly clear over the last few years is that there is one key thing that shapes our University experience… 

This year’s hackathon is slightly different to the rest – we’re using it to kick off a longitudinal research study, catching up with our participants every six months or so throughout their degree to find out how their experiences are going, points during their degree programme that require additional support and what transition activities at the beginning of their degree could’ve helped them further down the line. 

The day started off with a heavy downpour and we were slightly worried this would discourage students but there was no need to worry – 36 first year undergraduates had joined us by 9.45am, coffee and cookie in hand and ready to start the day. We kicked off with a short introduction to the hackathon and research study, followed by a brilliant introduction to the topic of transition with Alex O’Driscoll, Head of Student Success (Inclusion) Student Journey, sharing the context with regard to ‘student success’, ‘achievement’ and discussing community and belonging. 

Students then took part in a self-reflection activity, looking at their journey to university and their experiences so far, considering our key research themes: 

• Transition activities
• Wellbeing
• Academia and Assessment
• Community
• Communication

Students then discussed these in groups together, which had the dual benefit of sharing their experience but also getting to know each other a little more. This was then followed by the students being put into groups that they stayed in for the rest of the day. We organised the students into groups by Faculty, but aside from that they were mixed up (different genders, backgrounds, pre-entry qualifications, home nations, etc).  

Following a short break to the Theatre Bar, the students re-entered the room for the main discussion aspect of the day – an activity we called ‘the fishbowl’. Students rotated around different tables, each discussing one of our research topics listed above. Each group’s contributions built on the last, giving us an insight into areas that were very common (for example, all groups felt that they didn’t have enough access to past papers or know what ‘good’ looked like with regard to essays) to relatively individual or uncommon experiences. 

This was quite an intense couple of hours for all involved and we’d like to thank our co-researchers Alex O’Driscoll, Rosie Harbour and Abbi Bainton-James for their support in this activity! We ended the morning session with a quick Menti to see what the students have found most interesting during the morning session: 

We had a (well-needed!) lunch break after this and reconvened to re-cap the morning activity and highlight some of the work other universities have done on transition, such as the Immersive Induction Module at Plymouth University where students are immersed in a four week module in their disciplines and learn about study skills and networks that will support them in their studies; the University of Hull’s Bridging the Gap programme which provides international students with two weeks of on-campus orientation to familiarise themselves to their new environments. And the work the School of Biological Sciences are doing with field tripsto build belonging through making connections at the University of Bristol.

The students then had just over an hour to pull together a poster presentation, each with a research topic to focus on. We welcomed colleagues from across the University to view the posters and learn more about what the students had experienced in these areas. 

We’re yet to do a complete analysis of the day, but there were a few key takeaways that shone through. The first is that students are all having a hugely diverse experience – the different practices, expectations and contact times were unbelievably wide-ranging. 

Despite this, it was clear that there is one thing across all experiences that makes their university journey positive and that is: relationships. Whether it was with others in their halls of residence, academic societies, in their course or with their tutors – those relationships, when positive, where what were making students enjoy their time so far and feel a sense of belonging and mattering in the University. 

We’re really looking forward to meeting all of the students again in a few months’ time as they come to the end of their first year and we will reflect on what would’ve helped to know earlier on. We’re also keen to see how their experience of the different research themes – especially regarding academic and assessment – change over the next few months.