Student Engagement and Peer Support

At SOAS we create initiatives that enable all of our students to succeed, especially those who are already facing barriers, and help to ease the transition into university life.

Our aim to empower you to actively search and define what “success” means to you, develop the capacity to navigate higher education and make informed choices on your progression. We achieve this through delivery of a range of projects, interventions and policy which maximise engagement and creates a sense of belonging in the SOAS community. 

Collaborative Student Learning (CSL) is a peer-to-peer learning initiative where trained second-, third- and fourth-year students run weekly 1-hour collaborative learning sessions for small groups of first-year students studying the same degree programme.

CSL Facilitators are not expected to teach content. Instead, they facilitate group collaboration amongst first-year CSL Participants, enabling you to ask better questions, adopt better learning strategies, and work together to find solutions to common problems.

SOAS Peer Mentoring is a student-led initiative which sits within the Student Experience, Engagement and Retention (SEER) team. 

Targeted at helping you transition into university, this initiative aims to create a community by matching first-year students with student mentors in the years above them who are studying in the same department. The scheme runs both in person and via Microsoft Teams to ensure that all new students can engage with their assigned Peer Mentor.