Student Coaching to develop self-leadership

Could you use some help to develop your self-leadership skills?

  • Building confidence
  • Increasing productivity
  • Realising your strengths
  • Maximising effectiveness
  • Understanding your values and beliefs
  • Dealing with pressure
  • Problem solving
  • Taking action
  • Choosing a direction
  • Keeping focused
  • Staying motivated

 If so, you are welcome to apply for your own personal coach who can help you set and achieve goals concerning developing your self-leadership skills. The experience can help you throughout your studies, and also allow you to build your leadership skill set for whatever comes next. 

You can hear from two St Andrews students about how they benefited from signing up for a coaching experience.

What coaching is all about

Coaching is a way to set and reach some goals for yourself, possibly related to some of the elements of the list above. A coach is a trained professional who helps you think things through by asking a mixture of supportive and challenging questions.

Coaching is increasingly used in many situations and can benefit individuals in a number of ways. You might benefit from being matched with a coach for a finite number of free coaching conversations.

The University of St Andrews is in a partnership with Know You More, an established coaching organisation which specialises in coaching people in the early stages of their studies and careers. Know You More involves several hundred trained coaches, based across the UK, who provide virtual coaching sessions via Skype.

Typically coaching might involve 3-6 coaching conversations spread over a number of weeks or months, and each coaching session might last up to an hour. You will agree some goals with your coach at the start of your coaching partnership and work towards these. The coaching sessions are confidential. It's important that you have a coach you get on with, so you will be carefully matched (and can be re-matched if necessary).

You can find out more about coaching, and the benefits other University of St Andrews students have experienced via the sign-up web page. Please note that mature students are also eligible to take advantage of this service.

Below you can also find a webinar conducted with St Andrews students who were keen to find out more about how coaching worked.

Coaching from Student Services

Student Services at the University offers coaching to help students restore their wellbeing. To find out more about what they offer, and to access their service, please visit the wellbeing, counselling and mental health coordination webpage.