Our latest Welcome Week finished on Sunday (5 October), and it has been a record-breaking programme.
The eight-day schedule included 45 events (online and face-to-face), and there were many highlights.
340 students attended the online talk with actress and campaigner, Liz Carr – our first ever live star speaker event. Our huge thanks go out to Liz – it was an inspirational evening.
Other standout moments include the in-person Welcome Week Fair on Saturday, 27 September. 218 people (including 147 students) came along to our campus in Milton Keynes – a record for that event.






Later that evening, the online Welcome Week Kick-Off also had 140 attendees.
Our Welcome Week Scavenger Hunt attracted over 830 entries, while the number of users on OU Students Connect doubled in September (from 2,000 at the start of the month to 4,200 at the end of September). We had a competition to give out prizes for our favourite comments/introductions from students on social media and OU Students Connect, and it's great that so many of our students have taken the opportunity to meet each other online. (The winners of our competitions will be informed by Friday, 31 October.)
We'd like to thank all of you for getting involved with Welcome Week, whether you have attended an event online or face-to-face, or whether you've connected with someone online for the first time. All of this has led to unprecedented numbers of attendees, and new friendships that (hopefully) may last for a lifetime.