Interested in ... FPOC?

As a representative in the FPOC (of the Faculty of Science), you are central to the student representation at the faculty. You come into contact with educational matters of the various programs and help determine the educational policy that is pursued at the faculty. What exactly is the FPOC, and what does its mandate entail? Read it here!

What is the FPOC?

The FPOC or Faculty Permanent Education Committee (or faculty programme standing committee) is the body at our faculty that is responsible for all education-related dossiers that are important in one way or another at faculty level and therefore transcend the different programs. As a result, a wide variety of issues are dealt with here. For example, all program changes of all study programs at our faculty are approved here, but courses that are incorperated several programs, faculty measures such as the Scientific Integrity test, the corona measures, the regulation of COBRA (internal quality assurance project that evaluates the program), the website for the master's thesis tool and so on are also discussed here. Chaired by the Vice Dean of Education and together with all the program directors, every two weeks here you discuss the most diverse educational matters that concern all students of our faculty. That is why this body is also one of the most essential bodies in the field of education where good representation is of great importance.

What do you do as a student representative in an FPOC?

As a student representative in the FPOC, you are, as already mentioned, central to the educational representation within our faculty. At the FPOC meetings you have to represent all students from all programs of our faculty and proclaim the student voice loudly. Since this is one of the central bodies at educational level, you will be a point of contact for the student representatives and they can ask you questions about educational matters dealt with at the FPOC or they can give you comments that you should bring to the FPOC. As a member of the FPOC, you will occasionally have to defend issues that have never been of specific interest to you; the course-specific content may be about courses that you will never have and the subject matter discussed does not always relate to all programs. That's why it's essential that you not only focus on your own program and students around you, but also on students you'll probably never meet!

In addition, you will also be expected at the OOR meetings that take place every two weeks. Here you may have to clarify and frame the points discussed at the FPOC together with your fellow FPOC'ers. Moreover, your mandate offers a unique insight and a great deal of knowledge in educational representation that will very often come in handy at the OOR meetings: to interpret or clarify points, but also to give extra arguments for or against.

What does a mandate as an FPOC member offer?

As a member of the FPOC, you get a unique insight into the faculty's work on educational matters. You will deal with a wide variety of issues that apply to the many different programs at our faculty. Moreover, you have the freedom to think about points yourself, to raise existing problems at the FPOC and to bring completely new points to this meeting. In this way, you have an influence on the faculty's educational activities. In addition, this mandate also offers you the opportunity to act as a representative for people you may not know very well and you can thus train and develop this skill in order to learn to discuss and argue.

Is this something for me?

Whether this mandate is for you, you will of course have to decide for yourself. We hope that after reading the above information, you will know better what you would be getting into. We might want to give you a few more things you will need for the mandate:

• You are a team player and can function in a fraction.
• You have a broad interest in educational matters.
• You have good discussion skills or potential to develop them.
• You are motivated to go for it.