Student leadership

Student Learning offers leadership opportunities for students who are keen to support other students in their learning.

Student Learning offers a number of student leadership opportunities—we recruit postgraduate students as peer advisers, and also recruit students for programmes such as PASS and Cross Cultural Communication.

These leadership positions, either paid or unpaid, offer excellent opportunities to develop your interpersonal skills, cultural understanding, networking skills and communication skills. Training is provided.

If you are interested in any of the leadership opportunities below, email student-learning@vuw.ac.nz, call 04 463 5999, or drop in to Student Learning, Level 0, Kirk building, Kelburn campus.

Peer Advisers

Peer advisers work one-to-one with students wanting to develop their writing skills. These are casual positions for postgraduate students—you’ll need a high level of written and spoken English, and a high level of achievement in your own study.

Preferably you will also have some tutoring experience and knowledge of the University. These positions are paid.

Peer Assisted Study Support (PASS) leaders and mentors

PASS Leaders

PASS groups are led by students who have successfully  passed the course (B+ or better). Groups meet for one hour a week (in person and/or online) to consolidate understanding, reinforce key concepts and develop effective study strategies.

As a PASS leader you’ll get to meet new people and share your love of a subject, while reinforcing your own understanding and developing your leadership and communication skills. These positions are paid and contribute to the Wellington Plus programme.

Apply to become a PASS Leader by completing this form.

Role description is available below. For more information, check out the PASS homepage https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/student-learning/pass or email pass-studygroups@vuw.ac.nz.

PASS mentors

If you’ve been a PASS leader for two or more trimesters, you can extend your leadership skills as a PASS mentor. You'll help recruit and train new PASS leaders, and provide ongoing support throughout the trimester.

Mentors are required to participate in leader interviews (February/March and June/July) and leader training (first Saturday of each trimester). Role description and application form are available below. For more information, email pass-studygroups@vuw.ac.nz.

Supporting international students

You can volunteer or work with some of Student Learning’s programmes that support international students at Victoria University of Wellington. The Conversation programme helps international students practice English, talking with native speakers and finding out about life in Wellington.

Cross Cultural Communication volunteers

Would you like to:

  • learn about cross-cultural communication?
  • develop your leadership and communication skills?
  • contribute to effective internationalisation of our University?

If your answer to these questions is ‘yes’, then you might like to become a Cross Cultural Communication volunteer.

The Cross Cultural Communication programme is a 15-hour programme where students from different cultures learn how to communicate successfully in their new host culture: in our case, New Zealand. Put in another way, Cross Cultural Communication teaches newcomers the rules of the game for their new environment. The programme uses volunteers like you to help explain these rules.

You'll be given some training before the programme starts. Once the programme starts, you'll need to come along to five three-hour sessions. In these sessions, you'll:

  • answer questions about how to communicate successfully in certain situations
  • perform roleplays to show students exactly how Kiwis communicate
  • coach a small group of students from other cultures
  • gain knowledge and skills that will benefit you in your future multicultural workplaces.

Conversation leaders

English Conversation Hour leaders

These are voluntary positions for Trimester 1, 2025. The experience will improve your leadership skills, provide networking opportunities and boost your CV. To be a leader, you need to enjoy meeting people from different cultures and facilitate interactive activities. Sessions take place once a week for about an hour. You'll be expected to join the Tri 3 2024 (Nov 2024 – early Feb 2025) sessions to gain experience, before running the sessions alongside a Learning Adviser in Trimester 1 2025 (and potentially in Tri 2 as well). Please get in touch with Elvie at elvenna.majuddin@vuw.ac.nz if interested.