You will need to communicate with staff – lecturers, tutors, administrators, and support staff – while you’re at TU Dublin. Most of your communication will be in person or by email.
Matters that you might need to inform or ask staff about could include:
- Absence or illness
- Impact of a disability or specific learning difficulty
- Academic difficulties
- Skills development
- Information about timetables, registration, venues, and so on
- Assignments or exams
- Personal issues
More positively, you may wish to thank staff, or engage with lecturers or tutors about their module content or research.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help from staff. It is good practice to ask a classmate or friend, or to check the TU Dublin website or Brightspace first, to see if your question can be answered there. If not, you will find that most staff at TU Dublin are welcoming and will be delighted to help with your query.
Occasionally you may need to email a member of staff – perhaps to arrange a face-to-face meeting or to alert them to a difficulty that you are experiencing. See our email etiquette tips if you are unsure about how to address staff by email and check out our email templates below for sample emails to staff about common issues.
Sample Emails
The University uses email as an official means of communication with students and provides a TU Dublin email to each student for this purpose. All university correspondence will be sent to your student email account, it is important to regularly check your student email account as lecturers and support staff communicate via email.
Always use your TU Dublin email account when emailing members of staff. This way, they know that you are a registered student at the University. Many staff members will not respond to emails from non-TU Dublin email accounts.
Some lecturers have ‘office hours’, this is time outside of class to meet with students to discuss course-related queries, which include asking for extra help, seeking clarification of material presented in lecturers and following up on aspects of the course you find compelling.
Most lecturers do not require that students attend office hours. They expect students to decide for themselves when they need or want to participate. Lecturers usually announce their office hours on the first day of class and/or include them in the web-based course material on the VLE (Brightspace, Moodle).
Many departments are open during office hours, and you can pop in or drop documents in without a prior appointment. Many of the University’s support services have set opening hours where you can drop in without an appointment as well – you can find these on the TU Dublin website.