Activities and Engagement – Molly Curran

Making the most of life between lectures.

Introduce yourself and tell us about your campaign and yourself as well.

Hi, my name is Molly and I’m running for Activities and Engagement Officer and I’m currently in my final year studying Spanish and Portuguese. My favourite thing to do is I love to sing and play piano and also spend time with all my friends.

So tell us a bit about your campaign. What are your main policies that, um, that you’re looking to achieve?

I’d love to launch a student sports day. Um, I feel as though within Queens there’s lots of clubs and societies. But outside of this, I’d love to create a massive student event where all students could come together from all the different year groups and just have a massive fun event together in the dub. Hopefully next summer.

My second main policy is setting up a QB shuttle bus from the library back to residential areas such as Elms Village, BT1 and BT2, and also hopefully some of the other areas in the surrounding Queen’s area like Stranmillis, the Lisburn Road and the Holylands. I feel as though student safety is a major thing that needs to be improved, especially within Belfast, so hopefully that should be set up in the next year or so, if I get to be your Activities and Engagement officer.

My third main point is – I’d love to introduce more Irish language classes within the Language Centre. As a language student myself, I know the importance of one-to-one contact between a student and a teacher, and I feel as though it’s imperative that we can increase the number of language classes within the language centre, because they seem to be booking out within twenty-four hours.

What experience do you have with representing students that you can use next year if you’re successful?

Throughout my four years at Queens, I’ve been heavily involved with clubs and societies, for example, the Spanish and Portuguese Society. I was Secretary in my second year, and in first year I was the PR Officer for the Choral and Singing Society. Last year as well, I was on my year abroad in Spain and Portugal, and I was a Global Student Ambassador during that time, representing the university. And I also feel as though I have that experience of being an international student myself, because I went from Belfast to Spain and Portugal, and I can relate to those international students who are maybe coming to Belfast for the first time and don’t know anyone and don’t know a city, because I had to do that myself last year when I was in Spain and Portugal.

What are some specific challenges for activities and engagement that you would anticipate and that you really want to tackle next year?

I think that the main challenges I anticipate is that some students don’t feel included in things, and I want to feel as though everyone is in an inclusive environment within the university,and I want to support them in the best way that I can. I also feel as though safety is a major challenge that we definitely need to work on within the next year and need to implement a lot of student safety procedures, such as the shuttle bus from the McClay library after midnight.

On your plan for a sports day; how do you think that would benefit students in Queen’s?

I think that there’s so many clubs and societies within Queen’s and outside of this, there’s no massive event. I think that it would bring us all together as one. And the students would say that it would be such a fun way to have everyone included. And yeah, it would just be a bit of crack and a great time with everyone.

Describe your campaign in five words or less…?

Making [the] most [of] life between lectures.

What’s your favourite pub in Belfast?

I love the Jeggy Nettle Fantastic.

You can read Molly’s manifesto here.