Community provides a space for incoming students to meet each other, build friendships, answer each other's questions - all the while getting to know (and trust!) your institution.
The main draw for students is that they have the opportunity to meet the people they'll be living with and studying with, all before they even set foot on campus - easing worries about transitioning to university life, helping them to feel like they belong.
So how exactly can they do this within your Community? We have a number of built in features and tools that make facilitating connections easier than ever.
The People tab
The People tab - the newest tab in Community - is a simple to use directory of all of the student members within your community. This allows incoming students to explore their own area of study in order to find their classmates, but also to search for other areas of study and meet more people.
Student matching
Our proven engagement tool and one of the most popular features for students in Community, the 'Studying' and 'People from' carousels enables students to find their course mates, and also other students of the same nationality. They can scroll through to see profile previews, and opt to chat to someone directly.
Direct messaging
DMs between students is consistently our most popular mode of communication within Unibuddy Community - in fact, hundreds of thousands of students have exchanged direct messages in Community! Students have made friends, found housemates, arranged to travel to a new country together, eased worries, and have felt more confident to enrol; all through the power of these connections.
Icebreakers
Reaching out to new people can be daunting! That's why we introduced icebreakers, to give students some simple, tried-and-tested prompts to help them overcome their nerves and meet more people. The most popular icebreaker is a simple "Hey! 👋 How are you?" - the second most popular being, "Who would play you in a movie of your life? 🎬", closely followed by, "What's your favourite food? 🍕"
Private groups
The ability to create private groups means students can form smaller spaces with their new flatmates, people on their course or people they have similar interests to. We see private groups covering everything from bibliophiles to Taylor Swift fans, rock climbers to amateur photographers!
