Community provides a space for incoming students to meet each other, build friendships, answer each other's questions, and get to know 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, and giving them a head start in feeling settled and like they belong.

So how exactly do they do this? 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 members within your community. This allows students to explore their own area of study to find new course mates, but also to search for other areas of study and meet more people. This tab is being enhanced as we speak, so students will soon be able to search by nationality and hobbies, as well study areas.

Student matching

Our proven engagement tool and one of the most popular features for students in Community, the 'Find your people' carousel enables students to find their course mates, and other students of the same nationality. They can scroll through carousels of students studying the same program, and from the same country, and opt to chat to them directly.

Direct messaging

DMs between students is consistently our most popular mode of communication within Unibuddy Community - in fact, over 105,000 pairs of students have exchanged direct messages in Community since this functionality was added in. Students have made friends, found housemates, arranged to travel to a new country together, eased worries, and become more likely 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!