UniBuddy Live for all FGGA Programmes
Staying connected has never been more important. With campus visits suspended, how are students connecting with universities? In times where physical recruitment is impossible the university turns to a more modern way of connecting with the prospective students of generation Z.
Perfect Tool
It’s one of many innovative, online alternatives to the COVID-19 lockdown: UniBuddy. Luckily, the system was already in place when the lockdown measures were implemented. The university started out with a pilot version that went live in the last week of February. Leiden University College was one of the first programmes to use UniBuddy in recruitment. After 3 weeks and more than 40 conversations with prospective students before the lockdown hit, it was clear that this was a perfect tool for both international and national recruitment.
Peer-to-Peer
Student recruitment has typically relied on face to face interactions, but tools like UniBuddy are increasingly taking that highly valuable and meaningful interaction and digitizing it. ''As many students are stuck deciding between universities and programmes right now, the implementation of UniBuddy on our recruitment websites gives us an insight in what prospective students are dealing with and what questions they have.'' according to Tim Roumen, Communication Adviser at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. Together with his colleague, Rik Groot, online marketeer at the central communication departement (SCM) of Leiden University, they launched UniBuddy earlier this year.
The peer to peer system solely relies on trained student ambassadors and a staff key-user to help prospective students answer questions, provide them with a student perspective of a Bachelor’s or Master’s programme to make those important decisions.
UniBuddy is now implemented on all recruitment websites of our FGGA Bachelor’s and Master’s programme’s (with the exception of MIRD and CS). Check out the UniBuddy system on the Security Studies website.