Why fixing student problems one by one does not work

Efforts to improve student satisfaction often fall short. This is due to a tendency to focus on fixing problems one-by-one rather than redesigning the student experience altogether. 

While we strive to be a student-centred university, we were underperforming in certain areas. Our student dean’s office did everything it could to support our students’ happiness, and we took pride in our approach. Our board of trustees chairman and our rectorate held meetings with our student representatives, and we worked to address every problem we identified. So, why were we falling short?

Although we were well-intentioned and solution-focused, our response was limited because our efforts lacked a holistic approach. Instead of tackling problems one by one, we needed to see them through a single lens: the integrated student experience. I see the student experience as an interconnected structure that starts before admission and continues long after graduation; my doctoral thesis advisor, even in his eighties, still fondly recalls the university experience that shaped him.

Managing such a long and complex journey requires more than just operational fixes. It calls for a strategic design approach. Departmental or dean’s level efforts are not enough. This insight prompted us to reconsider both ownership and scope.

The rectorate took ownership of the process, aiming to develop a comprehensive and institutional view of students’ relationships with the university. We regarded the student experience not as an improvement programme, but as a design challenge focusing on how the experience is structured and how its key moments are connected. In our view, the problem was not speed but design.

During the planning stage, we used a process-based approach that required us to move from asking “Where are we going wrong?” to “How can we create a continuous system from beginning to end?” 

• Intervene with empathy to support students in need
• The evolution of student onboarding
• How can universities ensure all new students feel welcome?

Designing the experience, not just measuring it

The student experience is not just a measurable construct but also something that we must deeply understand and design intentionally. The development of an integrated student experience management system requires a process-oriented, proactive approach over an output-focused one.

Redesigning the student experience required us to look beyond overall satisfaction and instead focus on the moments when students form their perceptions of the university. We found that experience is shaped most strongly at transition points such as admission, course registration, early assessment or periods of academic difficulty where uncertainty is high and responsibility often shifts between units. 

By examining these moments closely, gathering short, event-based feedback and analysing areas of concern rather than relying on broad surveys alone, we identified where well-functioning services failed to connect. We collected event-based feedback immediately after specific touchpoints such as course registration completion, the first significant assessment and an initial request for academic support, using a set of focused questions. These typically explored whether students knew where to start, whether instructions were clear and consistent and whether their issue was resolved at the first point of contact. 

Alongside this, we paid close attention to areas of concern across the institution, including repeat enquiries for the same issue, time taken to resolve requests and the number of handovers between units for a single student case. Small, design-led adjustments at these points, such as simplifying preregistration guidance, aligning advisor responses across units, or introducing a more straightforward escalation path when issues could not be resolved immediately, proved far more effective than adding new initiatives.

Strengthening the connections between services

The student experience is more about the connections and relationships between services than just the satisfaction students feel with those services. Problems most often arise not because of the services themselves, but because of the inadequacy of the mechanisms that coordinate them. In practice, this shifts the focus towards strengthening handovers and shared ownership, which often has a greater impact than refining a single service in isolation.

What truly made a difference was not redesigning each unit in isolation but clarifying how services connect: who owns the student journey at each transition; how guidance is aligned across units; and how exceptions are escalated without redirecting students from office to office. We found that even simple coordination methods, such as:

• Brief check-ins before peak times such as registration or assessment weeks, to ensure expectations, messaging and responsibilities are aligned.
• Single, clearly defined entry points for student queries or requests, such as a common request form, helpdesk or digital channel that routes cases internally rather than sending students from office to office
• Shared visibility across relevant units on the status of student issues. In practice, this could be a simple shared case-tracking dashboard showing whether an issue is open, in progress or resolved, helping reduce repeated handoffs and duplicate follow-ups.

These help services function as a connected system rather than a collection of well-meaning but fragmented solutions.

Our actions have already started to change our mindset. Simply perfecting the service we offer to students isn’t enough. What truly matters is the student’s journey.

The student experience improves when it is designed and managed as a system with clear transitions, defined ownership and mechanisms that maintain a coherent journey from the first contact to well after graduation.

Language clarity and flow were reviewed using Grammarly.

İlkay Karaduman is the vice rector of Istanbul Aydin University in Turkey. 

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