What is a Student Ambassador?

8.11.2024 0 Like 0 kommenttia

Student Ambassadors Mark, Rong and Sointu talk about what they do and why.

Hey! It’s Mark here, SibA student ambassador since 2022 – I thought it would be interesting to share some experiences and reflections on what it is to be a student ambassador, what kind of work we actually do and why it’s important for the university. There is some important info about the continuation of the programme at the end of the blog, but before that… 

Some basic info! The size of the student body per academy is reflected in the number of ambassadors; currently there are 7 in SIbA, 2 in TeaK and 4 in KuvA. You can find out who the ambassadors are personally on the homepage of the Life of an Art Student blog!

I spoke with fellow ambassadors Rong (KuvA) and Sointu (TeaK) as well as giving my own two cents on the matter:

What do you do as a student ambassador? 

We have a few main ongoing projects: blog posts, building tours, presentations at high schools, a podcast channel, helping to organise events, and documenting them. 

Most importantly we help to make the information of the school more accessible for people who are interested in applying to the university. For example, we answer emails in which people ask about studying and student life in Uniarts.

These activities are the bread and butter of ambassador work, however, individual skills are utilised where possible:

“I have a few skills that are useful in this ambassador programme, since I do photography and know how to use the editing software – I’ve helped document events and have also done portrait photoshoots for the program, as well as created some illustrations. These are the tasks I enjoy the most.”   

“We are a team that can help to make things happen! I have during the past year helped to organise TIAN´s (Teak International Alumni Network) summer party as well as worked in the info desk of ISME (International Society for Music Education) conference.”    

How do you decide what to do, and who does what?

As mentioned before, some tasks are very self-initiated, such as our podcast program. One of us simply thought it would be a good idea to have a podcast, and then asked from the pool of 14 ambassadors who had experience, skills, interest and availability to participate.

In this case, we set up meetings, organised recording sessions and decided on the editing protocol amongst ourselves and independently from the school. Whilst the content of the work we do is in our hands, this kind of public work that is essentially marketing for the school is looked over by the marketing team of the university before publishing. 

Student Ambassadors are also offered work in exterior events, conferences, symposiums etc. and despite being categorised by separate academies, we collaborate and work together cross-academy a lot.

 What is the best thing about SA? 

“For me, the best thing in this job is that I get to meet and work with students from the other academies, Sibelius and Fine Arts. Normally, I don’t really cross paths with other academies’ students.”  

“This way of working is nice, as we can really self organise, and no one should have to do something that they don’t want to. It works well with an already busy study schedule as the work is flexible. It means also that it is possible to do quite little work whilst in the program, but as an hourly paid job, the incentive to work as much or as little as one wants is there.” 

“I like the job because I always speak from my genuine experiences without misleading applicants. Personally, I see this position as an opportunity to practise making compromises with the world and working with different people. As a fine arts student, I think this is a rare and valuable experience.” 

I’m not sure I want to be a walking advert, what’s the deal with the marketing stuff?

The SA position itself is promotional and quite focused on admissions.

However, it is useful to understand the SA work as an “Authenticity Role”. This means that it is a role in which a sense of truth or honesty is expected by the people interacting with the Ambassadors, and should be maintained. 

Uniarts already has Communications and Admissions departments which deal with maintaining the image of the university as an attractive place to study for prospective students. The role of the Ambassadors is to express a sense of reality of the life and struggles of being a student at the institution.  

It’s important to acknowledge this while working for the school. As a student ambassador, you can write blog posts and even critique or express concerns about the university. 

The double-edged sword of the authenticity role, is that the best form of marketing is the unbiased opinion – honesty and empathy have a stronger power for attraction than any advertisement could. Manifesting in the fact that even a critique of the school, via blog post, actually strengthens the schools profile in terms of transparency etc. 

Hence, one must remember that it is not the job of the ambassadors to recruit more students for the university, nor to create a falsely-fun image which the university can appropriate for marketing purposes. The role is about truth – expressing what it is really like, not just the highlights but the most banal and ordinary realities and staying true to the practicalities of student life in Finland.  

What does it take to be a Student Ambassador?

A key quality of ambassadors is to be “starter-uppers”– you not only have ideas,  but also the drive to do them. This kind of work requires self discipline, cooperation and compromise – all inevitable when working in a team.

Whilst the aforementioned “opting-out” of any work is mostly true, the role requires a little bit of public image curation by the school, so If someone has higher expectations of not being used as promotional material, they might find this position challenging. 

What is coming up?  

The student ambassador work position is still quite new and in development. Right now, we have a new podcast coming out, and are curious what kind of projects will be invented in the future!

Recently the SA programme was awarded some more funding meaning that it will continue – and as ambassadors graduate, there is a need for new enthusiastic people to join the team!

Applications for 2025 are now open:

Please think about applying for the role if it interests you, we’d be glad to have you on board 🙂 

So, that’s about it from us, thanks for reading!

Mark, Rong & Sointu