Learning support
Succeed in your studies
We organize regular workshops to help you succeed in your studies, on topics such as note-taking, time management, memorization, exam preparation, etc.
These workshops are free for UNIGE students and are given in French. More information here (in French).
Individual Interviews
Personalized advice can also be obtained through one-on-one meetings. More information here (in French).
Campus coach
You have just arrived at the UNIGE? A coach can welcome you by showing you around your campus and support you throughout the year. He or she will facilitate your social and academic integration and help you develop your sense of belonging to the UNIGE.
You coach will help you
- Discover the campus and the activities and events proposed by the UNIGE
- Integrate into university life and Geneva's social life
- Get by when you don't know many people at the UNIGE
- Manage the workload
- Work efficiently in a group and with the help of others
- Find help from other more advanced students
- Process your readings and summarize them
More information on the official webpage (in French) or directly by email:
Evaluate your teachings
Teaching evaluation allows teachers to know your point of view on their teaching, to get your opinion on what has worked well or less well and to find ways to improve. This allows you to communicate with your teachers. These evaluations take place approximately one month before the end of each semester.
You will receive a link to an online questionnaire by e-mail. This questionnaire is anonymous. It is available in French and English (click on the flag at the top right to change the language).
Evaluating your courses is important. You contribute to the improvement of the quality of teaching in your institution. It is a responsible, collective and participative approach.
Please remember to be understandable, constructive and respectful in your comments.
Distance learning
In the context of the sanitary crisis, all or part of the teaching is carried out at a distance. The University of Geneva uses a number of tools and platforms to enable distance learning.
Moodle
Moodle is an online learning platform that allows the creation, management and follow-up of courses. Its purpose is to provide support for online teaching and learning. This platform will allow you to perform exercises and quizzes, access resources, interact and work in groups, etc.
On Moodle, you will find courses offered by all the faculties, as well as training courses offered by the central services.
Mediaserver
Mediaserver is the multimedia platform of the UNIGE, on which you will find the recording of courses, their live streaming and the storage of audio and video files.
Tutorial: making the most of lecture capture (University of Sheffield)
Zoom
The Zoom videoconferencing system allows you to give or follow a live online course, conduct webinars and organize collaborative activities. The Zoom UNIGE platform is accessible at https://unige.zoom.us/, using an ISIS login. The first time you log in, click on "Sign-In" to configure your account.
As a student, you can use Zoom to create a work room for your group work or to study together.
OneDrive
OneDrive is the storage and collaboration platform of the UNIGE (equivalent to Google Drive). All UNIGE members have 1TB of personal storage space on OneDrive.
You can use this space to create and store your documents and course notes, your essays (reports, projects, memoirs) and perform your group work in synchronous or asynchronous mode by connecting simultaneously or not on the same document to edit it.
- Tutorial: logging in and dropping a file on your personal space (in French)
- Tutorial: creating a link to share a file with other UNIGE students (in French)
SWITCHdrive
The SWITCH Foundation offers the Swiss university community an alternative to the commercial services of the personal cloud, such as OneDrive, Dropbox, GoogleDrive, etc. Thanks to this initiative, the UNIGE offers a secure web storage service that provides the entire university community with free space for storing and sharing documents in the cloud.
To access this service, you need to go to SWITCHdrive and request the creation of a SWITCHcloud ID using your AAI (ISIS login).
- Tutorial: logging/creating a file/share a file (in French)
Library
The library offers a set of resources available remotely. You can thus access training courses, books and articles while at home.
Transversal skills
What transversal skills do our students develop?
Transversal skills (or "soft skills") have been at the forefront for several decades and have become essential for students:
- Because they have a direct impact on their academic and social lives and on their achievements, as well as on the reduction of dropout rates (Powell, 2013).
- Because they are highly sought after by employers, for whom their impact in obtaining and holding a job would even surpass that of hard skills (specific technical skills) or, at least, the application of hard skills would depend on transversal skills (Costin, 2002, cited by Wats & Wats, 2009).
Transversal skills therefore have an important place in the lives of students. Nevertheless, many employers deplore their lack of mastery among young people who have just graduated or are currently studying.
A few examples of transversal competences or "soft skills"
- The ability to work in a team
- Verbal reasoning
- Leadership capacity
(Dharmaraja et al., 2012).
- Communication skills
- The ability to lead a project
- Numerical reasoning
- Critical thinking
- Structured thinking
(Schulz, 2008)
The impact of transversal competences on academic success can be direct, as some authors have shown that they enable the development of study skills, but it can also be indirect, through extra-curricular activities such as sports or certain cultural activities that enable general personal development.
The mastery of transversal skills also has an impact on employability. The UNIGE Career Center team will help you develop your skills to increase your chances of integration into the job market.