Most student entertainments — the facilities and the events — are run by students themselves.

That doesn’t mean there’s little more than parties and amateur band nights (although, sadly, at some universities and colleges that’s true). From gigs by the biggest bands to club nights that make Ibiza look limp, students run their own entertainments — collectively.

Students’ unions (or SUs to those who like acronyms) are the organisations that students form as a group to lay on these goodies — everything from cafés to cabaret, bars to buses home afterwards. That doesn’t mean that students necessarily do all the jobs themselves but that, collectively, an organisation they run can employ professionals to do it for them.

Every university in the country has a students’ union; some are more active than uranium and others are less lively than lettuce.

An active union is like a shot in the arm for the students’ social scene, but every union has different priorities. The good thing is that it’s the students themselves, because they run the union, who decide those priorities. It’s all very democratic blah, blah, blah, but for most students, what’s important is that the job gets done.

As a rule, students are automatically members of the union from day one as a student. They get a card to prove it and proving it can be very useful because students get discounts on everything from CDs to clothes, from newspapers to trains and from mobile phones to videos.

When people talk about the students’ union, or often simply ‘The Union’, they’re referring not only to the organisation, but also to the building or centre from which it runs its services.

Typically it will house offices, of course, but also a few student amenities. And the list can be quite impressive.

Take for example, the building at Birmingham Uni (not the best equipped in the country, but one helluva way from the worst) which has, among other things: three bars, a couple of cafeterias, a sandwich bar, mini-supermarket, CD shop, advice centre, student travel agency, photo shop, box office, media centre, Waterstones bookshop, opticians, hairdressers, greengrocers, IT shop, Endsleigh Insurance office, car and minibus hire, meeting rooms, a debating chamber, a customised nightclub venue, HSBC, Halifax and Co-op banks, Blockbuster video rental machine, juke box and vending and games machines.

Multi-site universities usually need union facilities on more than one site and sometimes that means that services on some or all of the sites suffer.

The union is often the place that students go during the day for coffee and a chat or a bite to eat and where they come back to at night for events or just to hang out in the bar. But not everywhere, though. As we said, some SUs are higher profile than others.

Another word of warning: at some universities, the students’ union set-up is weird as woodlice. Some have more than one union in competition with each other. Glasgow University has five separate unions: two competing on ents and services, another one dealing with sports, another to represent students and one that’s just for postgrads.

At some places the students’ union is called the Students’ Guild, the Students’ Association, the Students’ Representative Council, even the Junior Common Room for chrissakes (what’s that about?), but basically they’re all pretty similar.

What’s important is the set-up and the level of activity, as they can have a knock-on effect on how effectively the SU operates, for better or worse.

If you get poor service from your students’ union and the gap isn’t filled by university-run amenities, the college (in a collegiate university), or local facilities (if you can afford them), then life holds fewer opportunities for students who want more than just a degree from their time at university.

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