South Lanarkshire College gets back to Normal by hosting on campus events

Virtual events, like for so many colleges and universities, became the norm for South Lanarkshire College during the pandemic.

Between March 2020 and August 2021, South Lanarkshire College hosted online graduations, open days and even corporate events, ensuring that the college could still celebrate success, showcase its facilities and promote the courses on offer, despite the unprecedented situation the world was facing. 

In August and October 2021, the College managed to safely host its first in-person open day in 18 months and were also delighted to invite students to a marquee on campus, to celebrate their graduation surrounded by their classmates. 

With further easing of restrictions in 2022, the College sprang into action hosting and continuing to host a series of in person, on campus events.  

South Lanarkshire College Depute Principal, Stella McManus said “Since the start of the year, we have been working extremely hard as a College to get everyone back on campus in the safest way possible.  During this time, the College has hosted two in-person open evenings live on campus.  The events, which were held in January and April, gave potential students the chance to speak with our support and teaching teams about courses on offer, and find out more about the opportunities available to them.  Visitors to the events were also treated to campus tours and demonstrations on the day”.

Stella continued “The events were held strictly in line with Government guidance, with social distancing, wearing of masks and regular cleaning taking place, to ensure that all attendees and visitors were kept safe during the event”.

Now that restrictions have been lifted, South Lanarkshire College has launched plans to host a drop-in session for new applicants on Wednesday 8 June between 1.30 and 3.30 pm and a community day on Saturday 20 August from 10 am to 2 pm.  The Community Day event will be open to residents from East Kilbride and beyond, and will include fun activities, tours of the campus, demonstrations, and stalls from 3rd sector organisations and local businesses. Visitors on the day, will be able to find out more about the commercial College spa and salon, the on-site training restaurant, The Study, the courses on offer and all that the college has to offer to the community. We know that the pandemic has been difficult for many people, so the day will help you to learn new skills or give advice on changing for anyone looking to retrain

South Lanarkshire College will then end the year, by hosting its annual graduation ceremonies over two days, in early November.   The two mid-week ceremonies will make a return to their usual home at Hamilton Town House for the first time since 2019.

Stella concluded, “I am absolutely delighted to be able to offer on and off campus in-person events. It has been a tough couple of years for everyone and this is something, as with many other things, that we certainly took for granted prior to the pandemic. We have such an incredible campus here at South Lanarkshire College and we love meeting our students face-to-face.  We really cannot wait to welcome more visitors through the door in the coming months”