Common questions for the start of the academic year

If you're starting in September: To complete your enrolment, you will need to attend a face-to-face international document check at Talbot Campus during your first week. Access to your course will not be affected by this as long as you enrol by Friday 31 January 2025. After this date, you will not be able to attend any sessions until you have been to see us and had your enrolment completed. 

At this check, you will need to bring: 

• ​​Your passport (only your passport can be accepted as proof of identity)
• Your student visa sticker (stamped by UK Immigration)
• Biometric Residence Permit (if you have one)
• Any previous visas for the UK and all other relevant immigration documents
• Before you come along to your enrolment session, please generate a share code for your right to study (not work or rent) so we can check this as you are enrolled.

What you need to do to get your documents checked will depend on your course and faculty. You can check which faculty your course is in on the BU website.

Find out when you can have your documents checked. 

If you have any queries about your international document check, please read our frequently asked questions. You can also get in touch with the Immigration, Advice and Compliance Team at [email protected] and they will be able to help you.

You can print your council tax exemption certificate through myHub. Please visit our council tax exemption page for more information. 

To request a replacement ID card (current/returning students) please complete the ID Card Replacement Form. 

AskBU can provide an official letter to confirm your student status at BU, to open a bank account, apply for an Oyster card, visa applications, term dates, award letters, for an EHIC/GHIC, or for a placement.

Please complete the relevant online form or print out your own letter.

Normally you will receive your first instalment within five days of the start of term, provided you have completed your enrolment and provided the Student Loan Company with the correct information.  

If you have not received funding after the first week of the semester, please contact AskBU. 

As an undergraduate student, you are normally entitled to funding for the standard length of your course plus one extra year. If you need to repeat a year of your course, you can still apply for full-time student finance funding. Do not apply for part-time funding, even if you're taking fewer modules than usual, as you are not eligible for this. 

However, if you repeat a year of your course more than once or you’ve previously studied on a higher education course and received funding in the past, you may have used your extra year of funding already. This means that you will not be entitled to receive a tuition fee loan for your repeat year (unless you have compelling personal circumstances, such as serious illness) and will have to pay your own tuition fee. For more advice, you can contact Student Finance on 0300 100 0607. 

Postgraduate student finance is a fixed award, regardless of how many years of study you undertake. Therefore, you won’t receive any further funding if you extend your course. You can still apply for additional financial support through BU. For more advice, you can contact Student Finance on 0300 100 0031 or contact AskBU. 

Funds are uploaded onto the bursary/scholarship prepaid cards on a monthly basis over nine months, from October to June.  

The credit is uploaded on the first working Monday of each month, but it can take until Wednesday of that week for the funds to show in your account. If you receive your prepaid card after the date that the first instalment is uploaded, you may receive the payment later.   

You can find further information regarding scholarship and bursary eligibility on our Scholarship and bursary web pages. 

To log in to your online bursary/scholarship card account, please visit www.spree-card.com/BUBSPR/Home/Login. When you first receive your card, you will need to go online at the above address to activate it.  

You will also need to notify BU to confirm receipt of the card, before your first payment can be uploaded. To confirm receipt, please log in to MyHub and tick the box to say you've received the card. 

Please note: Bursary/scholarship payments are uploaded on the first working Monday of the month. This means, that if there is a bank holiday on the first Monday of a month, the payment will not be uploaded until the following Monday. 

You can find full information on the following pages:

• Undergraduate tuition fees
• Postgraduate tuition fees

To log in, you need your student ID number e.g. s1234567 or your BU student email address and password. 

You will need to create a password. For security reasons, this needs to:   

- Be a minimum of 12 characters long (with no spaces) 

- Be different to your last 12 passwords 

- Include a combination of at least three of the following: 

• Lower case letter 
• Upper case letter 
• A single digit number (0-9) 
• A special character (e.g. ! @ # $ % ^ & * () = - {} [] “ ; ? , /) 
• Please do not use | or : 

We also recommend your password doesn’t contain single words or a recognisable combination of words, letters or numbers or personal details such as your name. 

You will need to reset your password every 365 days. 

To set your password, you need to register for BU’s password reset tool. Once registered you can reset your password by selecting the 'forgotten password' option. For more information please also check the Multi-Factor Authentication and Self-Service Password Reset FAQs.  

As a current BU student, you can download Office 365 for free on up to five devices.

How to download Office 365: 
• Head to office.com and log in with your BU username and password
• Click Install Office near the top right-hand corner
• Follow the on-screen instructions until Office is installed. Once downloaded, you can run Office on up to five computers (PC or Mac). 

Before downloading, you may need to remove previous versions of Office, as errors could occur during installation. If you experience errors, please remove all versions of Office through the ‘Programs and Features’ control panel. 

You can also download Microsoft Office for personal devices such as mobile phones and tablets. Just visit the App Store (Apple) or Google Play Store (Android) on your device to download. 
 
Please note: Office 365 is only free for the duration of your course. Once you have graduated, or if you leave BU early, you will need to purchase a subscription for Office 365 to continue using these services. Please consider this before removing any previous office versions you currently use, as any data stored on other versions will be lost. 

As an additional security measure to help protect your BU account, we have introduced Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to a number of BU systems, including Office 365, Zoom, and Brightspace. 

We have also introduced a new tool so you can reset your password without having to contact the IT Service Desk. 

Find out about registering for MFA and the password reset tool.

Check our Access the basics page for your BU email account, myHub, Brightspace and how to connect to Wi-Fi on campus.

You can find the dates for each semester on our academic dates webpage. 

When will my timetable be available and how do I access it? 

BU timetables will start to be released from Monday 8 September. Please look in Brightspace for details of when timetables will be available for your school, as they are not all released on the same day. You can find your timetable under the 'Useful Links' tab on Brightspace. Please note, if you will be choosing your optional units during induction week, your full timetable will not yet be available.   

You will need to have completed registration and enrolment to view your timetable. For further information visit the your timetable and calendar page.

Your timetable will tell you where you need to be for each taught session. 

Room numbers: Our rooms are numbered by building, floor and room number e.g. C114 = Christchurch House, 1st Floor, room 14; EBC302 = Executive Business Centre, 3rd Floor, room 2. 

Buildings are described as follows: 

BGB = Bournemouth Gateway Building (Lansdowne Campus)  

CH = Christchurch House (Talbot Campus) 

DH = Dorset House (Talbot Campus) 

EBC = Executive Business Centre (Lansdowne Campus) 

F = Fusion Building (Talbot Campus)  

PG = Poole Gateway Building (Talbot Campus) 

PH = Poole House (Talbot Campus) 

SC = Student Centre (Talbot Campus) 

SH = Studland House (Lansdowne Campus) 

SMCL = Sir Michael Cobham Library (Talbot Campus) 

TA = Tolpuddle Annexes (Talbot Campus) 

WH = Weymouth House (Talbot Campus) 

BLEND: You may find this in your timetable under the room number. This refers to something you need to do online and not an actual room.  

Check the getting around campus page for a full list of buildings. 

If you are based at our Portsmouth Campus, room numbers start with LV, e.g. LV1 

You can find the Talbot and Lansdowne campus maps on the website.