Student insights: experiencing ‘community’ at uni
Co-authored with Prof Steven Warburton, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education Innovation), University of Newcastle
‘Belonging’ has become one of higher education's most discussed concepts, and for good reason: research consistently links a strong sense of belonging to higher student motivation, academic confidence, engagement, and achievement. It has been recognised as crucial for equity, and since 2023 has had a dedicated place in the QILT Student Experience Survey, with longitudinal SES data suggesting that overall educational experience, connection with peers outside of class, and feeling supported to settle are key predictors of whether students feel they belong. But if belonging matters as much as the evidence suggests, are we designing for it, or just hoping it happens on its own?
We chose to use a qualitative research project to take a fresh look at these ideas through a ‘communities’ lens - the groups, networks, cohorts and spaces that students might feel they belong to during the course of their studies. Guided by the question ‘How can we support student networks and learning communities across different study modes and learner preferences?’, the research explored how students currently engage in communities; perceived impacts when community works well (or is absent); and what students expect from their university, educators, and each other when it comes to building connection and belonging.
We invited students across disciplines, campuses, and life stages to be part of a series of discussions, and we share some key findings below. Together, they challenge some common assumptions about university community and illuminate how institutional systems can undermine belonging. They point to a need across the sector for more intentional approaches to learning design and student support to build community and belonging.
1. There is no ‘core’ university community
Despite what we might like to think or remember from our own university experiences, most students do not experience their university as a single, unified community. Instead, students described a series of smaller, often disconnected worlds, shaped by factors like which campus they attend (if they do), what stage of study they're in, which discipline they study, and who they happen to sit near in a tutorial.
These multiple communities are not necessarily a failure of student engagement, but simply how the experiences of a diverse student body work in practice. Connection happens in labs, project groups, placement cohorts, and educator relationships, rather than at a whole-of-university level. Designing for community means facilitating and celebrating connections where people naturally come together, not simply offering a top-down, institutional identity to ‘belong’ to.
2. Communities need to keep the equity door open
Students from equity groups described their relationship to university community in ways that revealed a desire for connection, but also barriers to it. Sometimes, awareness was the issue: one second-year Psychology student in our discussions suspected a disability community existed somewhere at the university, but had never managed to connect with it. In other cases, our research found that opportunities to participate were known, but access to those opportunities was challenging. Getting to an on-campus event, for example, carries costs in transport, time, or energy that some students can’t afford, so the invitation to connect can inadvertently exacerbate a sense of exclusion. Communities built around equity needs can be wonderful, but someone needs to make sure the door is held open and alternative entry points made available.
3. Your systems are interrupting our connections
Students described community as something that depends on rhythm, routine, and predictability to take root. When our institutions disrupt that rhythm, there are consequences that may not always be visible to operational decision-makers.
A 4th-year Occupational Therapy student, for example, noted that a last-minute timetable change meant she had to reschedule children's appointments, her own medical needs, and other plans she had carefully arranged around her study commitments. What may appear as a straightforward timetable adjustment from an institutional perspective can have a much wider impact on students managing complex lives.
Students with caring responsibilities, health conditions, or shift-based work have built fragile but functional ecosystems around their study schedule. By providing greater predictability, timely communication and flexibility wherever possible, universities can strengthen those routines and reinforce a sense that institutional systems are working with students, not simply around them. In this way, operational decisions become an important contributor to community and that sought-after sense of belonging.
4. Community as a practical and emotional support
When students described the benefits of connection, they spoke across a spectrum of emotional and practical impacts. On the emotional side, students described staying motivated through difficult periods, having someone to study alongside when things felt hard, and feeling less alone in navigating the demands of a degree. On the practical side, they described using their networks to find information, share resources, decode assessment requirements, and alert each other to deadlines.
One 3rd-year Radiation Therapy student recalled how much discussion boards and conversations with classmates helped when assignment rubrics weren't clear about what was actually expected. Whilst we might intend that our instructions are always clear, the community crowd helps out when issues arise.
This blending of social and cognitive function is well supported in the learning literature, but it is worth acknowledging that when students lack connection, they don't just feel lonely. They are also less informed, less resourced, and less likely to persist. Peer networks do more than create a sense of belonging: they enrich understanding, improve access to information and resources, and strengthen students' capacity to navigate the complexities of university study. Community, in this sense, is not simply an enhancement to learning but an integral part of how many students learn successfully.
5. Learning networks don’t stop at the campus gates
One of the more striking findings of the research was the porous boundary between university community and the rest of students' lives. When students were asked to map their study networks, they didn't draw a circle around their cohort. Instead, most drew an extended web that included partners, parents, siblings, friends, employers, GPs, and even their newborn baby (bet that wasn’t on your ‘student support’ list!).
This has implications for how universities think about student support and community. The partner who works extra hours so a student can study full-time is part of that student's learning ecosystem. The friend who serves as a practice audience before a high-stakes presentation is contributing to learning outcomes. Recognising this broader ecosystem invites us to design with the whole student in mind, acknowledging that learning takes place within rich networks of family, work, health and community rather than within the university alone.
6. Community ebbs and flows, forms and re-forms
University study unfolds over time, and so does the experience of community within it. Students described their sense of connection as something that shifts as they move through different stages of a degree, from the tentative formation of early friendships, through the relentless rhythms of mid-degree grind, to the disruption and reorientation that often accompanies placements, online-only semesters, or the transition into final year.
A 4th-year medical student captured a feeling echoed by several students: the strangeness of being at an "odd transition point," moving from a predominantly in-class experience to full-time placement, and feeling the community she'd built suddenly disappear. Others found new professional networks and communities in well-managed placements where their university coordinator had made efforts to support and facilitate connection – showing that a little thought goes a long way in what can be a difficult transition.
7. There is no ‘better’: online and in-person both count
The research resisted any simple conclusion about whether in-person or online learning is better for community. Students' needs and preferences were diverse, and the meaningful finding was not about modality but about design within modality.
For students who lived at a distance from campus, had health conditions, or carried caring responsibilities, digital spaces were not a compromise, but an enabler. When online learning was well-designed, it allowed meaningful participation that would otherwise have been impossible. A 3rd-year student described relying heavily on online systems because of health issues following a significant injury, and finding them genuinely effective - he could not have continued his studies without these options.
For other students, being physically present with others was the point. Several mentioned ‘body doubling’ - the practice of studying alongside others simply for the focus and accountability that shared physical space provides, even when those others aren't studying the same subject or even studying at all. The common thread across both preferences was intentional design: the spaces, physical or digital, must work for the people using them in creating those opportunities for connection and participation.
8. Don’t leave community to chance - design it in
Students consistently described the value of collaborative activities like labs, interactive discussions, project work, and problem-based learning. These approaches were appreciated not just because they are more engaging, but because they create the conditions for the kinds of connections that sustain students through difficulty. Conversely, when learning environments are designed without attention to connection, students can miss out on both the social and the cognitive benefits that come from learning alongside others.
Whilst many students are happy to initiate connection for themselves and organic communities do spring up, it is neither reliable nor equitable to depend on this casual emergence. Educators do not need to orchestrate every interaction, but they can create welcoming entry points by helping students find one another, facilitating early introductions and modelling the kinds of collaborative behaviours they hope to encourage. If we’re not connecting with them, then why should they connect at all?
Three final reflections to consider:
Community grows through intentional design. Universities may not be able to create meaningful community at scale, but they can design the micro-conditions in curriculum, timetabling, support services, and learning spaces that allow community to form and flourish. This requires attention to the granular local experiences of a student in a particular cohort, on a particular campus, at a particular stage of their degree.
Community and equity are closely connected. Access to the conditions that enable belonging is itself unequally distributed, and policies that look inclusive on paper can function as barriers in practice. Designing for community means thinking first about students with the greatest constraints, which often leads to learning experiences that benefit everyone.
Transitions deserve particular attention. Periods such as the move into placement or new stages of a program deserve attention. These are moments when community is disrupted and often not rebuilt, and students are vulnerable to isolation at exactly the point when connection to peers and educators could be most valuable. By intentionally supporting connections during these moments, universities can help students maintain their sense of belonging and confidence as they navigate change.
Ultimately, one of the clearest messages is that good learning design is also community design. When educators build collaborative activities, create predictable and responsive learning environments, provide clear guidance and foster trust through consistency, they support more than academic achievement. When we build with community in mind, we create the conditions in which students can build relationships, develop supportive networks and leave university not only with a degree certificate, but with valuable connections for a lifetime of learning.
This article was prepared to support a HERDSA conference roundtable discussion in July 2026: ‘Student community as learning infrastructure: What should we design for, and why?’. Insights are synthesised from qualitative research conducted with students at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Student insights have been used with permission.