Hi, I’m Scarlett, your Working Class Officer this year! I am in my final year studying biochemistry. In my spare time I like to see live music and explore London.
Being from a working class background, my time at Imperial hasn’t been without its challenges; I am excited to have the chance to address some of these challenges and help other working class and first-generation students thrive at university!
My main priorities for this year are:
- Build a supportive community for working class and first-gen students to share their experiences and knowledge, and help each other navigate university life
- Improve support for students seeking private accommodation
- Continue efforts to lobby for cheaper, more sustainable food options on campus
- Run social events to connect working class and first-gen students
- Help students to navigate challenges such as imposter syndrome, networking and university finances
Please feel free to reach out to me via email or speak to me in person. Together, we can help each other flourish at Imperial and beyond!
Imperial’s Working-Class Network is one of the Imperial Union’s Community and Liberation Networks.
Our aims are to support Working-Class and First-Generation students throughout their time at Imperial, ensuring that their voices are heard during crucial college decisions, providing careers, finance and mental health workshops to help our members navigate university life, and providing a platform where students from similar backgrounds can get to know one another.
About Us
Since our founding in 2020, we have amassed over 300 student members and have strong support from staff members. We’re also involved with student outreach and plan to hold talks for schools with a high Working-Class and First-Generation student presence on the process of applying to university, our personal journeys into higher education and how we can support them if they choose to come to Imperial. In addition, not only do we collaborate with the Working-Class and First-Generation networks of universities across the UK, but we are also collaborating with other liberation officers within Imperial itself, to deliver projects such as our Period Poverty campaign, where we are aiming to provide free sanitary products in as many bathrooms on the Imperial campuses as possible to help in the movement of eradicating period poverty. Having built a solid core network, we’re aiming to grow our network membership levels and branch out into more support and outreach activites in the coming year.
We're here for you!
We’re here to support you in your time at Imperial. Not only are we there to provide a voice for our underrepresented students, but we’re also there to support you with welfare issues, with a dedicated welfare officer exactly for those issues. So whether it be emotional, financial, academic or other struggles, we’ll always be there to support you and point you in the right direction for further advice; we have a strong relationship with many of these departments in the college, who we have worked with to raise awareness of the needs of our Working-Class and First-Gen members.
We want you to be comfortable during university and have the best chance at gaining both the experience and grades that you are aiming for; each committee member has been through both common and unique barriers to higher education, and obstacles that have made completing their degree more difficult - we are not only there to sympathise with you, but to help your overcome these hurdles with people who have been through them first-hand.
The Committee
The Working Class Committee are volunteers elected by the Student body in our Elections - they represent the Working Class Network in the Liberation and Community Network.
Our committee consists of 4 posts: Working-Class officer (Scarlett) , Community engagement officer (TBD)*, Welfare officer (TBD)* and Campaigns officer (TBD)*. You can contact your Working Class Committee members and find out more about what they do!
*These roles are soon to be elected in the Autumn Elections!
Instagram: icworkingclassnetwork