Welcome Week 2026: Behind the scenes as new students arrive
22 Sep 2026
Nearly 19,000 student cards, and a hotline team working out of sight behind a partition. Welcome Week through the eyes of the colleagues making it happen.
If you've been on campus this week, you'll have noticed the difference immediately. Thousands of new students have arrived, and there's a buzz about the place that only comes around at the start of a new academic year.
They're arriving with questions about their student card, their visa, their registration and their laptop, and plenty are still exploring our campus and working out where they're meant to be next.
Most of them won't see the work that went into having an answer ready. Planning for Welcome Week started early in the year. By the time the first students walked through the door, colleagues from teams right across the University had spent months working together to help them feel like they belong from their very first day.
Queues have been building on the Main Library's Blue Ground floor this week, where new students can sort out several things in one visit, with teams who are usually based across campus working side by side.
Paul Ralphs, Assistant Manager in the Library Experience team, has been getting the space ready since the start of the year.
"We started prepping it all early in the year, by January, February time," he said. "We're the team that welcomes everybody into our space, and Welcome Week is a massive thing for us."
Nearly 19,000 students collected their cards here last year
Student card collection is one of the biggest draws. Every new student needs to pick up their card, and last year nearly 19,000 of them did so in the Library.
When we visited the week before Welcome Week, the floor was quiet. Paul called it the calm before the storm.
Pointing at a quiet space, Paul said: "This is going to be full of people, all excited, hopefully happy, coming in to get their ID cards," he said.
Visas, finance, registration and IT under one roof
The University's immigration and finance teams are based in the space for Welcome Week, so students with questions in either area can talk to someone face to face. The IT team, based in the Library while their own building is remodelled, has colleagues walking the floor to help with any computer problems.
Some of the help is out of sight. Behind a partition, colleagues on the registration hotline are taking calls from students who need help with their registration.
"These guys aren't student facing," Paul said, "but if anyone's got a problem with their registration, they can call up and speak to one of these amazing people."
Students getting ready for students
Some of the preparation was done by students themselves. Samhita Mukherjee, from the Library's student team, spent the summer updating the Get Started workshops that new students attend, including bringing them in line with the new AI in Teaching and Learning policy.
Samhita arrived in Manchester as a new student herself in 2023, and now she's one of the people helping this year's arrivals settle in.
"Every time I talk to a new student and they have some questions that I had, I go back to when I was a first-year student," she said. "I really enjoy meeting new people and helping them, and just being part of their small story of their freshers' week is quite special".
One part of a much bigger Welcome
What's happening in the Library this week is being repeated in different ways right across the University. Colleagues in schools and faculties, in halls, in Estates, in IT and in professional services teams all have their part in how these first days feel for new students.
Plenty of us will cross paths with a new student before the week is out, even if it's only to point someone in the right direction on Oxford Road. If one of them asks you where to go, our Welcome Week guide covers everything that's happening across campus this week and where to point them.
"It does energise you"
"Welcome Week's a little bit special, because everyone's coming in new," Paul said. "It's a new world for them. It's super busy, but it's a super fun time, and it's something we all in our team really look forward to."
"It's hard work, it's stressful. You've got loads of people coming through the gates all the time, trying to find help, trying to find the right service for their problem. But it's exciting. You're really helping so many people in such a short space of time. It does energise you. It does me anyway."