DPR News
Jumpstart Your Success: Everyday Matters
Leading universities around the world are teaching students about wellbeing to support their success in learning and life. Students increasingly value their wellbeing and personal development while employers seek self-efficacy skills including resilience and self-awareness.
Here in UCC, in September 2025, incoming first year students on selected modules will have an opportunity to 'learn to be well' so they can 'be well to learn'. Twenty-four module leaders across the four colleges in UCC are devoting time and space in their semester 1 curricula for 1500 students to take 'Jumpstart Your Success: Everyday Matters', a bespoke self-paced online unit that is available to students on their Canvas dashboard. In this unit, students will explore what being a successful student means to them, learn what mental wellbeing means, describe how the brain develops in the late adolescent years [up to 24 years, 80% of all undergraduates in Irish universities within this age band], analyse their time use, learn how to build healthy habits that stick and strengthen their resilience by considering their support network.
Students can earn a micro credential for completing the full Everyday Matters: Healthy Habits for University Life®️digital badge, a more comprehensive time use and wellbeing course which complements Jumpstart Your Success: Everyday Matters.
These curricular innovations are elements of a three-year wellbeing and the curriculum project underway in UCC supported by Higher Education Authority Mental Health funding. This pioneering project is progressing national policies on promoting mental health across the population and Higher Education Authority policies on student success and student mental health.
This project is designed and led by Dr. Eithne Hunt from the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, UCC in collaboration with students, academic and professional services staff. For further information please contact Eithne at e.hunt@ucc.ie